Floyd Mayweather’s Jr.’s 90-day sentence on reduced charges was the battered game’s last significant headline in 2011 and sadly an appropriate wrap –a plain, brown paper bag, please — for a year best forgotten.
Speculation in twitter time already is making the rounds about whether a Mayweather fight with Manny Pacquiao is in jeopardy or possible in late 2012. Who knows? In frustration, I’m tempted to say: Who cares? But that would be dishonest. It’s still a fight I’d like to see.
But it all hinges on what nobody has ever been able to predict and that’s Mayweather, himself. Barring a successful appeal, there’s just no way to know what jail time will do to him.
In reading Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa’s sentence in a plea deal that allowed Mayweather to avoid a felony trial for his role in a 2010 case of domestic abuse, there was a warning that jumps out of the legalese. Mayweather has to avoid trouble for one year. I hope he can, but I have my doubts.
Behind bars, he’s a target for taunts and worse from wannabes of every stripe. From rent-a-cops to Larry Merchant, Mayweather reacts badly to anything he interprets as a lack of proper respect. He won’t be getting any of that from jailhouse guards.
Once out, there will be more of the same on the street. There have been times when Mayweather has shown composure. It was there when the corners indulged in a ring riot during his 2006 victory over Zab Judah. A cool Mayweather stayed out of it. He’s going to have to stay out of a lot more during the next year.
QUOTES, ANECDOTES AND COUNTERS
· You know what they say about karma. Can’t help but guess that Victor Ortiz thinks it was at play in Mayweather’s sentencing. Ortiz was knocked out by a combination in September when his hands were down and his eyes on referee Joe Cortez instead of Mayweather. The combo was called a “legal cheap shot.” In striking a plea agreement and reserving Las Vegas’ MGM Grand for a May 5 fight, Mayweather behaved as though he believed he would never go to jail. Mayweather must feel as if he has been hit by another kind of “legal cheap shot.”
· Questions about a vanishing scorecard and an altered card in Amir Khan’s controversial loss to Lamont Peterson should be enough to get Washington D.C.’s attention about the need for a federal commission. After all, it happened there. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer said Tuesday in a conference call that the International Boxing Federation’s master sheet vanished. About 10 days later, according to Schaefer, it suddenly re-appeared like a suspicious ballot cast in south Florida during the 2000 presidential campaign. There must be some hanging chads on the original.
· Controversy about Mayweather, Khan-Peterson, referees and judges take away from the good in 2011. There’s Andre Ward, this corner’s pick for Fighter of the Year after a brilliant decision over Carl Froch. There’s Ward’s cornerman, Virgil Hunter, choice for Trainer of the Year. There are also Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez. Neither figure to be included in year-end awards. Yet, both were the working definition of class — poise under pressure. On Dec. 3, Cotto displayed it throughout his disciplined attack in avenging a 2008 loss to Antonio Margarito. On Nov. 12, a composed and reasonable Marquez disputed the decision that went against him in another loss to Pacquiao. Marquez did so without rancor after proving all over again that Pacquiao is beatable. It’s hard to believe Marquez has never been voted Fighter of the Year, either by The Ring or the Boxing Writers Association of America. Someday, that will be seen as a terrible oversight.
AZ NOTES
· Top Rank plans a busy 2012 for junior-welterweight prospect Jose Benavidez, Jr., an unbeaten 19-year-old who begins the year on Feb. 3 at Wild Horse Pass & Casino in Chandler, a suburb of his hometown, Phoenix. “Eight, maybe nine fights,’’ Benavidez’ dad and trainer, Jose Sr., said.
· And what would have been a nasty trial in civil court has been averted. Phoenix Hall of Fame junior-flyweight Michael Carbajal and his estranged brother Danny reached an out-of-court settlement. Michael was suing Danny for 12 parcels of real estate that Michael said Danny, his former manager and trainer, bought with ring earnings stolen from him in a fraudulent scheme. Danny was released from prison last summer. Under terms of the agreement, Michael gains ownership of the property surrounding his boyhood home in downtown Phoenix. The trial had been scheduled to begin in early January.
