01.02.07 – By Michael Marley, BoxingConfidential.com: He temporarily lost a gig with Laila Ali when the “She Bee Stingin'” released him from an assignment in South Africa so he can work challenger Bad Chad Dawson’s corner in a WBC light heavyweight title bout Saturday night in Kissimmee, Fl. Earlier this week, Oscar De La Hoya made official what boxingconfidential.com readers knew two months ago, that trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. and ODLH have parted ways regarding Oscar’s May 5 super fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. So Floyd Sr. is out and, again no surprise to our readers, Freddie Roach is in..
But, like Frank Sinatra sang, let the record show that Floyd Sr. has taken the blows and he is still doing it his way, still tossing off insanely bad poetry and other verbal bombs. That which does not kill boxing’s most controversial and cocksure trainer only makes him stronger.
“Freddie Roach leading Oscar to victory over my son?” Floyd Sr. said in a lengthy interview Thursday. “Joke Coach Roach Would Not Dare To Approach! So let him train Oscar. I wouldn’t take those peanuts to go against my son. And that’s all it was, peanuts. I do not work for peanuts, I’m no elephant.”
Both sides have said Oscar and sidekick Richard Schaefer offered Floyd Sr., who trained Oscar the past six years, $500,000 with a bonus of $500,000 if De La Hoya beat Little Floyd. Floyd’s estranged father demanded a flat fee of $2 million.
“At the end of the day, it is what it is,” Floyd Sr. said. “But did they really want Roach? How come they called me twice, Oscar and Richard? That’s a fact. You know what time it is on Roach.”
During his worldwide media conference call Tuesday, formally announcing that Floyd Sr. was out and Roach was in, De La Hoya and Schaefer both said that they did not want to see a further wedge driven into the already icy Mayweather father-son relationship. Floyd Sr. said their sudden concern for Mayweather family unity struck a lot of chords, all of them false.
“What does Oscar got to do with my family all of a sudden? He ain’t trying to bring my family together. He can’t do that and he won’t do that. If Oscar wanted me to teach him how to beat my son, he had to pay and he wouldn’t. So to make those kinds of remarks…well, Oscar has to be stupid,” Floyd Sr. said. “That is a bunch of bullshit. He is just putting that out there for the public. Our (split) was about the money. It was about the do-re-mi.”
The trainer admits he would like to melt the glacial permafrost between he and Pretty Boy. But Floyd Sr. said he has been rebuffed in the past.
“I have been in my house (Las Vegas) for six years and my son has never been there,” Floyd Sr. said. “I’ve tried to approach him. It ain’t me. I don’t know what kind of hang ups my son got. But I took all my boxing knowledge and gave it to my son so I did right by him. I went to be around him three or four times but it didn’t take.”
What if someone waved a magic wand and Pretty Boy, whose own ego is as big as Texas, decided he wanted Pop in his camp as a co-trainer with Floyd Senior’s brother Roger Mayweather or just as an adviser? Would Senior cross that line?
“No, no and no,” Floyd Sr. said. “I know Oscar and Richard ain’t gonna give me no ticket and neither will my son. I will watch the May 5 fight from afar. I won’t be on the scene so I will catch it on the screen.
“What did (Mayweather adviser) Leonard Ellerbe, say about me leaving Oscar? Leonard said Oscar’s chances to win are slim and none and none is out of town. I must be none then. I don’t look at Leonard as no friend but that statement got me dumbfounded.
“I couldn’t work with my brother, Roger. He went behind my back to train Little Floyd. My son was a grown man but Roger went behind my back for the money. He knew me and Little Floyd had a dispute so he went on the down low. Roger just stabbed me in the back. I can’t work with such a back stabbing, deceitful person. I prefer not to work with such a person. There’s a bad way to do things and a classy way to do them. Roger, he chose the bad way.”
Does Pretty Daddy think his son’s humongous pride and ego will prevent him making a call, even just for a little conversation between now and May 5?
“I would say that (his ego) would be too much for that to happen, yes,” Floyd Sr. said
“But I shouldn’t have to pay for a ticket to see them fight and I won’t. That won’t happen.”
Floyd Sr. predicted, of course, that Bad Chad will dethrone the plucky Polish champ, Tomasz Adamek, and he said “my training skills are just getting better and better every day. I am pretty sure Bad Chad will take this kid to school over here. I am just continuing to learn new things. I have forgotten more about boxing than the average trainer knows.”
Finally, Floyd Sr. has a warning of Biblical proportions for Little Floyd.
“You know, it says in the Bible, to honor thy mother and thy father or thy days will be short. That does not apply to just my son but to all these kids out here today who are disrespectful to their elders. Let your Boxingconfidential.com readers know it, Marley, all these kids need to show more respect for their elders.”
With that, Pretty Daddy cut me loose. Maybe he had to go work on his rhyming couplets or his iambic pentameter.
Man’s a poet and, oy, does he know it. He’s Floyd Sr. and he is still spouting and shouting.