Floyd Mayweather doesn’t mind playing a bad guy if it helps make him a rich guy because growing up around criminals has pushed him to become boxing’s top star and an undefeated champion.
The unbeaten 30-year-old American trash talker puts his World Boxing Council welterweight crown at stake on Saturday against undefeated English rival Ricky Hatton in a showdown that has drawn thousands of Britons to the gambling mecca.
”Instead of going to the UK, I can bring the UK to me,” Mayweather said. ”Everybody wants to be part of the Floyd Mayweather experience.”
These days, that multimillion-dollar lifestyle includes stints on Dancing with the Stars and TV shows hyping the fight, usually with ”Pretty Boy Floyd” making over-the-top comments and talking of himself in the third person.
”It’s a business. I’m a businessman,” Mayweather said. ”In each fight there has got to be a good guy and a bad guy. You just have to deal with it and fight through everything.
”Floyd is always giving back. They never talk about Floyd Mayweather feeding 600 families for Thanksgiving or the Christmas charity event I’m having.”
It’s quite a jump to selling ringside seats for $15 000 for a man who survived a troubled youth with his father jailed for selling drugs and once shot before his eyes as he grew up poor in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
”I’m just a kid that came from nothing and fought my way to the top, beating everybody they put in front of me,” Mayweather said. ”I don’t sell drugs to people. I learned from my dad’s mistakes. I got it legally, from hard work and dedication.”
Even when Mayweather plays the mouthy money flasher who tosses $100 bills around, he recalls the hard times and says, ”stuff like that is what’s going to keep me grounded”.
Mayweather, 38-0 with 24 knockouts, worked with his uncle Roger, a former world champion fighter now turned trainer, and has won six world titles in five weight classes without a loss in the past decade.
”I am the greatest and this is my time,” Mayweather said. ”I’m not disrespecting Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson. I’ve accomplished something no other fighter has. I’ve reigned for a decade and lost to nobody.
”I don’t think I will get the credit I deserve until my career is over and I give the sport all I have.”
Mayweather already feels like he has beaten the odds and entitled to enjoy the spoils.
”I’m not arrogant. I’m cocky. I’m abnormal. I bring something different to the table. I came from a harsh background,” Mayweather said.
”I don’t think Ricky Hatton has ever seen his father shot. I don’t think Ricky Hatton has been on drugs. I don’t think his dad has been to prison. I come from a neighbourhood where people dying is normal.
”To come from that life and fight my way to the top, that’s one hell of an accomplishment. I truly believed in myself when nobody believed in me. I don’t think it’s cocky. It’s just super-confident.
”When everybody was doubting me, I never complained, I never cried. I just kept proving them wrong.
”I live my life the way I live it. He lives his life the way he lives it. If he wants to drink beer and throw darts, that’s his life. My life is a little bit different.”
So is his determination.
”Being a sharp, intelligent boxer and lasting this long without getting beat, that has got to be ability. You can’t learn that,” Mayweather said.
”Everything is an obstacle. Everything is a learning experience and only the strong survive.
”I’m one of the strong.” – AFP
