Years ago, Floyd Mayweather regularly repeated his father's original charge that Genaro Hernandez was "a piece of garbage," promised to beat Diego Corrales "on behalf of battered women everywhere," and berated Arturo Gatti so mercilessly that promoters arranged for separate fight-week press conferences.
All three of those deceased champions faced Mayweather in crossroads fights, and all three went to their graves harboring some sense of resentment over his verbal fight-week treatment of them.
Mayweather has been understated in the lead-up to his May 2 welterweight blockbuster against Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas.
From boxing's pinnacle, with pay-per-view running a record $99 for Mayweather-Pacquiao and the Grand Rapids native projected to earn a nine-figure windfall under even worst-case projections, Mayweather no longer engages the level of pre-fight banter that left some of his most significant opponents mentally wilted before opening bell.
And when he was the biggest trash-talker in the game, he said it was "absolutely" all centered on self-promotion.
"I've always thought that," Mayweather said. "At first, it was like, one way or another, by communication or by my boxing skills, you will watch me, you will see me, I will be seen. But I'm in a position now I don't have to do that."
It wasn't always that way.
When Mayweather fought Zab Judah in 2006 -- a fight nearly scuttled by the latter losing to Carlos Baldomir -- Mayweather said before the fight that he predicted that upset loss because "Zab worries about too many things outside the ring instead of taking care of his job," and said Judah was "worried because he's not getting any money" due to tax liens.
When Mayweather fought De La Hoya in 2007, he engaged a pitiless series of media-tour verbal assaults, and at one point stole De La Hoya's food and was accused of stealing his luggage.
Mayweather said the luggage was a mistake, but taking De La Hoya's food during the Washington tour stop was just another way to goad his opponent.
Richard Schaefer, then the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, called Mayweather's behavior "childish" and "insufferable" and threatened to send the fighter home if it didn't stop.
Mayweather never let hypocrisy get in the way of a good rant, like chastising Diego Corrales over a spousal-abuse case, or Judah over tax liens, neither of which are foreign to him, either.
Nor did he acquiesce to attempts to rein him in. When Gatti was scheduled for his press conference first, followed by Mayweather, the latter crashed the Copacabana night club in New York early. Gatti stormed out.
That contrasts with last week, when Floyd Mayweather Sr., who trains his son, said his son asked him to tone down the pre-fight chatter. Mayweather Sr. and Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer, have engaged the nastiest pre-fight banter thus far.
Bob Arum promotes the low-key Pacquiao, and also promoted Mayweather from 1996-2006.
Mayweather has taken regular shots at his former promoter over the years, which Arum has downplayed during this promotion.
"There's no reason for any animosity," Arum said. "If he had done something really bad to me ... but he hasn't, nor have I to him. So a lot of this rhetoric that went on was the normal rhetoric you have in a situation like this."
Mayweather, 38, is about the engage the quietest big fight of his life, if things don't change in the next four weeks.
"It was a lot to make this fight happen," he said. "In the past, everyone was saying it was Floyd (who was blocking the Pacquiao fight). And my thing was this, if I didn't have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.
"That's no different than in the past, like I look back at certain things, 'Damn why did I do that?' Like, you're older, you're wiser, and my focus should only be the fighters that I'm facing. Those are the only people I should have a problem with or a beef with, not anyone else."
Article courtesy of mLive