Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao dismissed a derogatory online video posted by Floyd Mayweather Jr, calling it an “uneducated message” and choosing to instead focus on his upcoming fight with Antonio Margarito.
In the widely circulated video, Mayweather goes on an expletive-filled and sometimes racist rant against Pacquiao, the newly elected Congressman from the Philippines who faces Margarito on Nov. 13 at Cowboys Stadium near Dallas.
Mayweather said during the video, which appeared this week, that he’s on vacation “for about a year” and would easily defeat Pacquiao after that.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“I just heard about that, but I didn’t see the video, but it’s an uneducated message,” Pacquiao said on Friday on the final stop of a three-city tour to promote his fight.
Mayweather, at times interacting with fans by phone on the video, claims Pacquiao “can’t speak no English” and has “never seen a contract he didn’t like.”
There are also suggestions that the Filipino sensation has used performance-enhancing drugs, assertions raised previously by the Mayweather camp that resulted in a defamation lawsuit that is still pending.
“It’s a really cheap low blow, but again, consider where it came from,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer. “We tried to fight him. He said no. He doesn’t want to fight.”
Roach said he had not seen the Mayweather video.
Mayweather’s chief adviser, Leonard Ellerbe, did not return messages. His publicist, Kelly Swanson, said in an e-mail that she had seen the video, but had not been in touch with Mayweather or Ellerbe and couldn’t comment.
Fans have been calling for Mayweather to fight Pacquiao, but negotiations have repeatedly broken down for what could have been the richest fight in boxing history.
When a deal wasn’t reached in January, Pacquiao instead fought Joshua Clottey, defeating him in March at Cowboys Stadium. When negotiations broke down again this summer, Pacquiao turned his attention to Margarito, whom he will fight for a vacant junior middleweight title.
It is unclear when the Mayweather video was made, but it appeared online this week when Pacquiao and Margarito were in the midst of their promotional tour. After stops in Beverly Hills and New York, the media tour wrapped up on Friday at Cowboys Stadium — in an end zone plaza instead of on the field, which was being prepared for a college football game.
When asked about the possibility of a Mayweather bout, Pacquiao responded: “I’m not looking for that fight. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done in boxing already.”
Pacquiao said he’s only planning a couple more fights before retiring, though he gave no indication of who the opponents might be. The seven-division champion said earlier this week that he would still face Mayweather if he accepted the fight.
Todd duBoef of promoter Top Rank said he had heard about the Mayweather video, but “probably” didn’t have any interest in seeing it. Mayweather used to be a Top Rank fighter.
DuBoef said that Pacquiao was ready to fight and not interested in waiting any longer on a bout with Mayweather.
That was Mosley’s first fight since beating Margarito in January last year and the last time Margarito fought in the US. He was suspended for a year because a plaster-like substance was found in his hand wraps.
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
‘GLOBAL PRESSURE’: LA’s Dave Roberts said that it was difficult to appreciate the ‘pressure on a global scale’ his starter was under ‘pitching for his country’ The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled out US$1 billion for Japanese talent in the off-season and it is paying off in the MLB playoffs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday outdueled Yu Darvish in a historic post-season matchup of Japanese-born starters, while the Dodgers got home runs from Kike Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 and advance to the National League Championship Series. “It’s pretty sweet,” a smiling Freddie Freeman said. Yamamoto allowed two hits over five innings for the win, getting pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals who were meeting in a
RSS