This may come as a shock to you, but there are bad people in sports. Just like there are bad cops, bad teachers, crooked politicians and just evil humans in general. I know both Mayweather & Pacquiao a bit, I’ve covered both of their fights for many years. The first fight I ever covered as media was a Manny Pacquiao fight almost six years ago.
Pacquiao is one of the nicest athletes I have ever met, I don’t recall him ever saying a bad word about anyone ever. He is always smiling, never seems to be in a bad mood and just is a pleasant person to cover. Mayweather has the MONEY persona, but for as long I’ve covered his fights, going back to his coming out of retirement fight against Juan Manuel Marquez he has more or less been a professional with myself and the media .
I am not on The Money and I am not Team Pacquiao, but the notion that this is Good vs. Evil is ridiculous for a couple of reasons.
First, Mayweather’s history of domestic violence has been documented by every well-respected person in the boxing media, not just this month, but for years. Nothing that ESPN or Deadspin is running, hasn’t been covered many times. I am not exactly sure how the mainstream media is spinning this as new information considering Mayweather was in JAIL for two months and it was a huge national story that wasn’t just covered by sports media but news media. I get bringing it up a week before the fight is good for ratings and views, but this notion this is some revelation and people have brushed it aside is frankly asinine. You can’t brush aside a jail sentence and Mayweather has fought several times since then, so I’d like to assume people who say they aren’t supporting him now wasn’t supporting him then?
If you bought the Maidana fights, why all of sudden are you high horsing for the Pacquiao fight?
I know Brandon Marshall and Terrell Suggs were abusers, but is it brought up every Sunday when they play? I know Ben Roethlisberger was accused of strong arming several women going all the way back to college, should there be an Outside of the Lines for that when Steelers play Patriots to start the season?
It is your right as an American to decide to pay for whatever you want to pay for. It is your cable bill, but if your only reason for not supporting this particular fight is because you got a conscience this week even though you knew all this before, is pretty weak and hypocritical in my mind. Which leads me to believe this is more social media talk than anything else.
But, let’s say for instance you don’t support Mayweather because you believe he is a woman beater, which is your right. What about Pacquiao?
As I said before Pacquiao nicest person you will ever meet, but he also opposes gay marriage, which is sort of a big deal because Pacquiao is a congressman and can affect laws. Pacquiao says the law of GOD is the reason he feels this way about gay rights, people use the Law of God for a lot of things. Speaking of being in Congress, Pacquiao is rarely there, is accused of beating up a politician and buying votes for his seat. He also fights against and this is according to Deadspin, legislation that would help with sex education and family planning in the Philippines.
I was there at Pacquiao-Marquez 3 when his wife almost left him for cheating, gambling and as it was put being unholy an hour before the fight. Pacquiao happy go lucky guy, but he isn’t without fault.
So who are you going to support, the alleged abuser or the alleged crooked congressmen who doesn’t believe in equal rights and sex education? Mayweather’s allegations and an actual arrest has been out there, but he is the highest earning athlete in the U.S., why is that? This isn’t a he said/she said situation (even though there are differing accounts of what happened), he actually went to jail for domestic violence.
Can you hate Mayweather and love Chris Brown? Can talk bad about Tiger Woods cheating and say Pacquiao is your hero? Ray Rice deserves a second chance, but you won’t buy the PPV out of principle?
I think you see where I am going with this. You have to be able to separate the sports from the personal. This is what a professor told me a long time ago, that these guys aren’t your friends and you don’t know them. When you start picking and choosing you just dig yourself a deeper hole. When you start rationalizing why you root for one and not another then your hypocrisy gets bigger. I don’t make assumptions about people’s stance on domestic violence because they are on the Money Team or their thoughts on gay marriage because they are Team Pacquiao. I don’t assume there are good and bad guys, when athletes get caught doing something wrong people act surprised, but you shouldn’t, because you are only seeing their media persona. If Peyton Manning secretly has bodies buried in his backyard, I wouldn’t bat an eye (remember that time Manning was accused of sexual harassment).
Sometimes, actually a lot of times the media wants things to be good vs. evil, it is a cleaner story when you have a good guy vs. a bad guy, villain team vs. hero team, but the reality is there are far too many shades of gray in the world for it to ever be that simple.
Just be honest.
If you think Mayweather is an asshole and you hope Manny puts knocks him out that is fine. If you think Pacquiao is being propped up as some GOD and Mayweather getting a raw deal because the media love to black villain that’s cool. Whatever you think, tweet or us in the media write or talk about isn’t going to change the fact after May 2nd Mayweather-Pacquiao is going to be the most watched PPV event in the history of sports.
Just remember no one is perfect whoever you are rooting for in whatever sport probably has some skeletons in the closet.
Even Tebow was lying about being a virgin at Florida…………..