Humble. Quiet. Polite. Contemplative, even. These aren’t the words one would have normally used to describe Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the past. These aren’t the words this author, nor the soldiers assigned to Task Force Duke at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Afghanistan, used to describe Mayweather following an overseas Skype session in 2011.

The date was Sept. 2 of that year, and Mayweather was just weeks from squaring off against Victor Ortiz, the World Boxing Council welterweight champion at the time.