Hola amigos y familia, welcome back to a smoky asado infused edition of Central America’s most blacklisted weekly pugilistic publication, The Sunday Brunch – We’re willing to take the full five minute rest, even for a questionable belt-line shot. This week we’re chopping up the Mayweather-Maidana rematch where we will take a glance at the controversial(?)officiating. Also on tap, we look ahead for both men and try to make some sense of all this Pacquiao fight talk. So, flip on the Food Network, work up a healthy appetite and then gaze in slack-jawed disappointment at your woefully barren refrigerator, we’re about to begin. With that being said, I gave you your instructions in the dressing room, what I say you must obey – Cuidate, escucha me, toca los manos y buena suerte…Let’s get it on!
Leave it to a Floyd Mayweather fight to bring out the nonsensical “haters” in full force. The only thing that can match this advanced level of absurdity is perhaps in a Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather comments thread.
This week, social media was filthier than usual with the uninformed knuckle-draggers spouting off about fighters ducking other fighters, guys cheating and/or woman beating…True or not, such chatter is now standard background noise anytime the sport’s pound-for-pound best steps in the ring.
This time, Floyd Mayweather faced off against perhaps one of the dirtiest players in the game, Marcos Maidana. I must admit that after the Argentine clearly pressed Mayweather’s glove into his mouth and took a bite of his fingers, I lost a lot of respect for him. Not sure he did it? He did deny it after the fight, after all. Even though his mouth was oddly still open after the alleged bite you’re still not certain, huh? It’s amazing to me that in 2014, in the boxing fight capital of the universe, instant replay still isn’t employed during a championship prize fight.
That brings me to referee Kenny Bayless. Did he do such an outrageous job on Saturday night that the fight became unwatchable (not the Bey-Vasquez undercard fight, that one was unwatchable)? Were his interjections enough to spur talks that he was paid off by Mayweather? To warrant calls for his retirement? This was not a Joe Cortez scenario, people. Bayless was fully aware of how their first fight played out with the lack of officiating. In order to attempt at keeping things copacetic, he made separation in situations where further entanglement would likely lead to fouling.
It’s not astrophysics, it’s common sense. In my opinion, what referee Tony Weeks did (or didn’t do) in their first meeting was much more offensive…what Pat Russell did to Ruslan Provodnikov by not calling several knockdowns against Timothy Bradley is a far more egregious crime.
Being from New York and spending a large chunk of my life living across the street from the Twin Towers, I get quite patriotic around September. This comes to mind…and most definitely THIS. If Floyd Mayweather isn’t the embodiment of the American Dream, I have no idea what is.
This is a man who came up from poverty, in a drug abusing household to win an Olympic medal for this country. This is a man who literally used his own two hands to carve his name into the annals of boxing history and in the process earned a king’s fortune. No matter what anyone says, that’s the American dream and he crushed it.
Whether or not Marcos Maidana continues fighting is still questionable. He made close to (if not more than) five million dollars in his meetings with Mayweather and may opt to spend more time relaxing with his family in Argentina.
If he does continue fighting, he’ll still have marquee drawing power in some markets and likely has several fights left in him. More often than not, Maidana’s got an extremely entertaining style and any way you slice it, losing to Mayweather is nothing to be ashamed of (not like biting someone’s fingers during a PPV event).
Floyd Mayweather famously has two bouts left in his massive Showtime contract, who he chooses to fight next is entirely up to speculation, but a match with the wildly popular Brit, Amir Khan certainly isn’t out of the realm of reality.
That fight would sell out anywhere they plant it and Khan is likely to bring the kind of boisterous crowd that makes events like that really special.
After dominating Maidana, the ever-interviewing Jim Gray confronted Mayweather with the prospect of facing Manny Pacquiao sometime before he hangs his gloves up. Mayweather, ironically, responded like a politician and gave vague answers alluding to Pacquiao’s upcoming responsibilities in Macau.
With the new Oscar De La Hoya trying to (at least claiming to) bridge the gap between rival promotional group, Top Rank and his own, the fight has a chance of getting made, especially with lucrative prospects dwindling and both of their careers rapidly coming to a close.
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It was great to see pictures of Paul Williams floating around on Saturday night, the one with him and Sergio Martinez was particularly heartwarming.
Both Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson were ringside at the time of “the bite”.
Virgil Hunter is like Rob Schneider’s character in any Adam Sandler movie that yells “You can do it!”
Seriously, is Hunter a coach or a therapist? He always has advice with no real game plan or method to achieve those goals. Not even bringing up how he almost sent Alfredo Angulo back into the stone age via the horrible coaching he gave during the Canelo fight.
Chris Algieri fans are called Algerians, think about it.
Thanks for joining us this week, we will be back next Sunday with another episode of the most ball-crunching, loosely food-themed boxing column in the game. We’ll be delving into professional Craig’s List shopping and we are going to take a look at neutrons, quarks and nanotubes and how they will change your life in the next ten years. Also, check out the newest installment of the Boxing Tribune’s zombie survival/boxing talk podcast, Left Hook to the Brain. Until next time, sante.
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