LAS VEGAS (AP) — The clock is ticking on Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s career. He claims his fight Saturday night with huge underdog Andre Berto will be his last, and he will leave boxing undefeated and very rich.
Mayweather hasn’t always been pretty to watch, though that didn’t stop 4.6 million people from buying his fight with Manny Pacquiao. A defensive wizard, he fights just enough to win, even if it leaves boxing fans wanting more.
Still, he had some memorable moments on his way to wealth and fame. Here are a few:
uMAYWEATHER AND 50 CENT: HBO created the “24/7” show for Mayweather’s fight with Oscar De La Hoya, and it didn’t take long for him to steal the show. In the first episode Mayweather is shown with his entourage getting a haircut in his Las Vegas mansion. Through a doorway comes rapper 50 Cent, riding a Segway. “He’s the villain in rap music,” Mayweather said. “I’m the villain in boxing.” Mayweather and 50 Cent would later split, with the rapper mocking Mayweather for allegedly not being able to read.
uWHO BEATS WOMEN? It was early in Mayweather’s career when he met Diego Corrales in a clash of two unbeaten boxers. Corrales was facing jail time for beating his pregnant wife and Mayweather vowed to beat him “just like he beat that woman.” Mayweather won the fight, knocking down Corrales five times in one of his best performances. But Mayweather would have his own trouble keeping his hands off women, finally serving two months in a Las Vegas jail in 2011 for beating the mother of his children.
uNO APOLOGIZING IN RING: Victor Ortiz had just been penalized for a head butt in the fourth round of his September 2011 fight with Mayweather, and he wanted to apologize. Mayweather was good with that, but when Ortiz hugged him one last time after action had already resumed, Mayweather unleashed a left and right that put Ortiz on the canvas. Ortiz was counted out, and Mayweather got his only knockout win in the last eight years.
uCINCO DE MAYWEATHER: Mayweather played the villain against De La Hoya all the way into the ring of their 2007 fight, drawing boos from De La Hoya’s Latino fans by wearing shorts with the red, white and green colors of the Mexican flag and a white sombrero into the ring against the Golden Boy. The act worked, with Mayweather winning the fight and beginning his career as a pay-per-view money machine.
uWRONG DRINK: Technically, this wasn’t a Mayweather moment but it was a Mayweather fight. Juan Manuel Marquez was the opponent in September 2009, and the HBO cameras zeroed in on him while he was drinking his own urine in training. “I’ve done it the last five or six fights with good results,” Marquez said. The results weren’t good against Mayweather, who dominated the fight on his way to an easy decision win. “That’s filth, man, filth,” trainer Roger Mayweather said of the training drink of choice.
uWRONG BUTTON: The week of his 2011 fight with Miguel Cotto, Mayweather met with a handful of writers to discuss the bout. One set him off with a question about not fighting Pacquiao, and Mayweather stood ranting and raving for the better part of 10 minutes about how Pacquiao used steroids and didn’t deserve the fight. “Are you an American?” he asked the writer. “I’m an American and I don’t want to see him taking back all that money to another country.”
uMONEY MAY: He built a persona on money, and has made plenty of it. Mayweather and Pacquiao combined for the richest fight ever, a bout that reportedly made Mayweather some $220 million, though this week he claimed it was more like $300 million. After he beat Pacquiao, Mayweather finished off his press conference and stopped on the way out to show two reporters his down payment for the night. In his hand was a check with his name on it for $100 million.
