Ranting On...Floyd Mayweather

Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

The event looked a bit like a red carpet awards show.  Jay-Z and Beyonce were there.  So were Mark Wahlberg, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Affleck, Claire Danes, and Drew Barrymore.  Jamie Foxx even piped in on the National Anthem.  Honestly, the Golden Globes probably would have been fine if this was their crowd next year.  And yet, of course, it wasn't an awards show or a film premiere or a charity concert-it was a boxing match, Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao, and that made me raise an eyebrow with a "hmm."

For starters, I'll admit that I wasn't really aware that boxing was still part of the zeitgeist.  I thought this sport had largely gone the way of the dodo in terms of public interest.  After all, you rarely hear talk around a water cooler or even during sports conversations about boxing, and it turns out that this seemed more like an event than something someone actually wanted to watch consistently-sort of how everyone loves figure skating when it's at the Olympics, but the second it's in ANY other televised venue the ratings go to hell?  That's sort of what I'm picturing here.

But it was definitely lucrative.  Forbes estimates that between the live gate and the televised special the match will pull in some $500 million-an aggressively large amount of money for a sport that rarely makes the front pages.  HBO is already hyped up on the match, shoving commercials at its audience in hopes that another match that doesn't have the name Mayweather attached to it will be just as popular, though that seems doubtful-there are few people in boxing quite as famous as Mayweather.

Which brings me to my next point, and the main reason that I wrote this article: why are we celebrating Floyd Mayweather?  Honestly-it takes about two seconds to realize that this is a man that we should not be remotely giving small fortunes from our pockets (seriously-$100 to watch this on pay-per-view...do you not have a mortgage...Suze Orman would not approve of this at at all?!?) in order to watch him beat mercilessly on another human being.  For those of you who are oblivious or didn't quite frankly know there was a boxing match this weekend and are wishing I would have spent today discussing The Avengers box office or what happened in Garland TX yesterday, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is arguably the biggest name in boxing.  He's also had multiple counts of domestic abuse thrown at him, and has served time for them (though considering that he's been convicted on four separate occasions, the fact that he's only served 90 days shows the exact amount of worth the legal system puts on domestic abuse, which is heartbreaking, petrifying, and insane).  This is someone that you feel deserves $100 of your hard-earned money?

I frequently talk about this weird sort of dismissal of a person's professional versus personal life when it comes to athletics.  I will admit that I have given money to artists and entertainers who have been accused or convicted of specific crimes, but there's always the very thick line between supporting the specific art and the specific artist (and quite frankly, I usually find a way to rent the movie on Netflix or listen to the song for free on YouTube if I feel really morally conflicted about a person but want to see what the fuss is about).  There is no distinction in athletics, in my opinion, but particularly no distinction in boxing.  For starters, you can't argue that you've always been a Baltimore Ravens fan and Ray Rice just happens to be a team member like you do in football.  Boxing is a solo sport, and Mayweather will end up with $100 million for the bought in Las Vegas.

Let that sink in for a second.  A man whom everyone in the public knows is a convicted domestic abuser just got paid $100 million to fight someone.  We just rewarded a man who has beaten women in the past on multiple occasions with a 9-figure sum for beating up someone.  In fact, the public celebrated it-we cheered for this man for fighting despite the fact that he has devoted his personal life to domestic violence.  We should all be disturbed at what message this sends to to young people or victims of abuse-that apparently it's okay, it's something to dismiss if the man is famous or has a professional career.  This is not a situation where you have always been a Ravens fan. This is not a situation where you are watching a movie where one of the actors has done something egregious.  This is a situation where one solo man got applauded after years of abusing women.  I think that all of the celebrities who attended and all of the people who paid at home need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and think about what you just helped promote.  Because it wasn't sports history, it was a shameful celebration of someone who promotes violence in and out of the ring.