Mayweather Jr. Accuses HBO Boxing Announcers Of Racial Bias
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Mayweather Accuses HBO Boxing
Announcers Of Having Racial Bias |
Retired boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. Friday during his first post-retirement interview criticized HBO telecasts and the net's announcers for a "bias against black fighters, and for not treating their own indiscretions as seriously as those committed by people they cover," according to David Mayo of the GRAND RAPIDS PRESS. Mayweather said HBO's Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Emanuel Steward are "always talking about the negative things in my life. But I've seen Jim Lampley in the same strip club as me before. They always want to talk about me going to strip clubs, but they don't want to talk about that." Mayweather also blamed HBO execs for "participating in a sequence of high-level business events which forced him to plead no contest to an assault he insists he did not commit." In '03, Mayweather was charged in conjunction with an incident at Michigan-based club The Radio Tavern, where a bouncer was "beaten and bloodied." Mayweather denied the charge, but negotiations for his first PPV main event against Arturo Gatti "stalled when Gatti's promoter, Main Events, insisted Mayweather resolve the case first." Mayweather said that HBO "sided with Main Events in pushing him to cop a plea." He added that HBO "should return to a format in which a prominent former boxer serves as an analyst," as Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman and Lennox Lewis previously have. Mayweather: "There aren't any fighters commentating on boxing, that's the problem" (GRAND RAPIDS PRESS, 7/5).
HBO DENIES ANY BIAS: HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg Saturday in a statement "called Mayweather's criticism of the network's boxing announcers for perceived racial bias 'unfortunate.'" Greenburg: "[Mayweather's] remarks regarding HBO broadcasters and executives are unfortunate and we could not disagree more. We will not engage in a debate. We are very disappointed in hearing about this. We wish him well in retirement." However, boxer Winky Wright "came to [Mayweather's] defense, saying HBO announcers regularly demonstrate 'favoritism' for nonblack fighters." Wright: "They're just always looking for the next white hype. They just don't give black fighters the same credit that they do for a white fighter, or a Hispanic fighter like [Oscar] De La Hoya. They definitely have their favoritism" (GRAND RAPIDS PRESS, 7/6).
NEWS TRAVELS FAST: In N.Y., Phil Mushnick writes, "Amazing, how any fool with fame can make an inflammatory but baseless accusation that within minutes will be carried around the world." HBO "pushes all of its good fighters hard, but few harder, in recent years, than Mayweather and Roy Jones Jr., both African-Americans who were paid tens of millions of dollars by HBO." The fact Greenburg was "moved to deny Mayweather's preposterous claim he should've ignored ... is sad, too" (N.Y. POST, 7/7).
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