05.01.07 – Michael Marley, BoxingConfidential.com — LAS VEGAS — Will Oscar call him or not? Will he be in De La Hoya’s corner when Oscar answers the first bell against Floyd Joy Mayweather’s son, unbeaten Floyd Jr., here on May 5? Or will ‘Pretty Daddy’ just be another of the million or so couch potatoes who catch it on the TV screen because they couldn’t be on the scene? For an ex-boxer, Floyd Sr. is doing a lot of wrestling lately, wrestling with some pretty heavy questions which have to be running through his mind. But the father of Pretty Boy Floyd said that’s not really the case.
“I will say this, it’s not the same fight if I am not in Oscar’s corner,” Mayweather said. “Like I told you before, Oscar is good as he’s gonna get and he won’t get better with anyone but me..
“Is my son trying to send a message to me? Floyd Sr. said. “I don’t really know, whatever. Maybe, in his mind, it is. I’ve been with Oscar for five or six years and I’m no damned fool. But, like I told you, where I am going to be on May 5 is really Oscar’s choice.
“It comes down to this situation. It’s a 50-50 situation type fight. When my son went and challenged Oscar, then he was challenging me also. No doubt on that.”
If Oscar, who has fired trainers in the past through second parties, gives Floyd Sr. the heave-ho, what then?
“If I am in Oscar’s corner, that is cool. If I am not, would I even go the fight? Probably not. I’d probably stay at home and watch it on TV. It is what is,” Floyd Sr. said.
Mayweather’s frosty, dysfunctional relationship with his son won’t change, win, lose or draw, the father said.
“My thing is this…people are making too much of this against my son thing. I don’t feel I am against my son. As soon as this fight is over, my son will still be my son, will still be my blood. That ain’t changing whether he and Oscar fight or not.
“People are getting too hyped on this, way too hyped,” Mayweather said.
“This fight is big, yeah, it may be so big I wouldn’t even give it any of my poetry.
That’s how big it is. But this is about competition, it’s a sport, a boxing match.
There is no grudge between me and my son. My son don’t have to beat me and Oscar don’t have to beat me. They will be trying to beat each other.”
Speaking of poetry and switching gears, I asked Floyd Sr. what advice he will give to new pupil, Bad Chad Dawson, for his WBC 175-pound title bout against Tomasz Adamek on Feb 3. Floyd Sr. won’t be in that corner because of an earlier commitment to be with “She Be Stinging” Laila Ali on that date in
South Africa.
“I’ve told Chad everything comes off the left jab. You don’t have the left jab, then you’ve got loneliness and bitterness and you’re stuck in the wilderness.
You’d be like a blind man without a cane. The jab is both your offensive and defensive weapon. I told Chad, ‘That’s your foundation.'”
Tick, tock, so goes the clock. But the phone? No zing and no ring yet?
He may be the world’s worst poet and he don’t know it. His ego is the size of Mars.
But Floyd Joy Mayweather Sr. has paid his dues in Oscarland. He deserves to hear it, directly from his boss with the hot sauce, ODLH. Should he place a PPV buy order, will Butch Cassidy dump the Sundance Kid?
Is he in or is he out? It’s you call, Oscar.