By Norm Frauenheim
LAS VEGAS – Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his promotional partner Leonard Ellerbe tried to put an end to questions about the domestic abuse scandal engulfing former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice Wednesday after the final news conference for his rematch Saturday with Marcos Maidana.
The questions continued the day after Mayweather said he wished Rice “nothing but the best’’ during a session with reporters following his formal arrival Tuesday to the MGM Grand.
“If I offended anyone, I apologize,’’ Mayweather said Wednesday. “I don’t condone what happened.’’
Ellerbe said: “Floyd doesn’t condone this behavior. Period, end of discussion. No more questions about that.’’
Mayweather served two months in jail for a charge related to domestic abuse. He pled guilty to domestic battery in a 2011 incident involving his former girlfriend Josie Harris.
Mayweather’s ex-fiance is suing him. Shantel Jackson filed a lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. Jackson, who is represented by feminist attorney Gloria Allred, alleges Mayweather beat and humiliated her.
In news reports of Tuesday’s media session, Mayweather did not criticize Rice, who was indefinitely suspended by the NFL after video obtained by TMZ showed him knocking out his wife, Janay Rice, with a left hook while inside an elevator at an Atlantic City hotel.
“I think there are a lot worse things that go on in other people’s households also,’’ Mayweather was quoted as saying Tuesday. “It’s just not caught on video.”
He also expressed sympathy for Rice, saying: “I know he’s going through a lot right now, because football is his passion, football is his love. It’s no different than me being in the fight game if they told me, ‘Floyd, you have the biggest deal in sports history’ and a couple months later they said, ‘Your deal is taken away from you.’ It’s not really the money it’s the love for the sport, the passion … I know it’s drastic on him and his wife.”
During the news conference, Ellerbe took the media to task for being too critical of the unbeaten Mayweather.
“All of this hating and criticizing needs to stop,’’ said Ellerbe, who argued that a negative press has prevented boxing from reaching crossover fans and gaining the mainstream popularity enjoyed by the NBA . “…We must find a way to acknowledge greatness when we see it. There have been great fighters, but never anybody like Floyd, who has put the whole package together.’’
Mayweather has always been able to ignore distractions, although many of them were of his own making. Three days before opening bell against Maidana, it was hard to know whether the ongoing controversy over Rice would distract him from what some believe could be a dangerous fight. Mayweather’s goal is a stoppage of Maidana.
“A knockout is important,’’ he said. “I want to make a statement. Not a statement to the world, just for myself.’
