Floyd – Manny Will Have to Wait; MMA WIsh List
Floyd Mayweather Jr. pleads guilty
by Associated Press
Mayweather-Pacquiao Ruined?
LAS VEGAS — Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a perfect 42-0 in the ring and has dodged significant jail time several times in domestic violence cases in Las Vegas and Michigan.
But his courtroom streak came to an end Wednesday when a Las Vegas judge sentenced him to 90 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to a reduced battery domestic violence charge and no contest to two harassment charges.
The case stemmed from a hair-pulling, punching and arm-twisting argument with his ex-girlfriend Josie Harris while two of their children watched in September 2010.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. will likely turn 35 behind bars. He’ll have time to think about his future and whether it will ever include a fight with Manny Pacquiao, writes ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael. Blog
“Punishment is appropriate,” Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa said after a prosecutor complained that Mayweather has been in trouble before and hasn’t faced serious consequences.
“No matter who you are, you have consequences to your actions when they escalate to this level of violence,” she said.
Good behavior could knock several weeks off Mayweather’s sentence. but he will likely serve most of the sentence set to begin Jan. 6, said Officer Bill Cassell, a Las Vegas police spokesman.
Mayweather and his manager, Leonard Ellerbe, declined comment outside the courtroom.
The jail time raises doubts about a possible showdown between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, a champion fighter from the Philippines against whom Mayweather’s welterweight success is usually measured.
A long-awaited fight between the two men regarded as among the best of their generation has been delayed by stalling techniques and verbal sparring.
The two men have a defamation lawsuit pending in Las Vegas federal court stemming from statements by Mayweather that he suspects Pacquiao was taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Mayweather returned in September from a 16-month layoff to continue his undefeated record with a controversial knockout of Victor Ortiz in Las Vegas.
Mayweather’s promoters have a May 5 date reserved against an as-yet unnamed opponent at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. But if Mayweather is jailed until the end of March, it could cut into the usual eight-plus weeks he takes to train.
Lee Samuels, a spokesman for Pacquiao’s promoter Top Rank and Bob Arum, declined comment on Mayweather’s sentencing and its possible effect on a match.
Mayweather, 34, stood still in a striped olive vest and showed no reaction as the judge sentenced him to six months in the Clark County jail then suspended half the term.
She gave him credit for three days previously served in jail and ordered him to complete 100 hours of community service, pay a $2,500 fine and complete a yearlong domestic violence counseling program.
The plea deal avoided trial on felony and misdemeanor that could have gotten Mayweather 34 years in state prison if he was convicted on all counts.
Mayweather also is expected to plead no contest next week to a separate misdemeanor harassment charge involving a 21-year-old homeowner association security guard who was poked in the face during an argument about parking tickets placed on cars outside Mayweather’s house.
Mayweather’s lawyer, Karen Winckler, said she may appeal what she called the unusual sentence handed down Wednesday.
In court, she called Mayweather “a champion in many areas” and aired a list of his good deeds, including buying toys for children for Christmas and promising to donate $100,000 to breast cancer research by the end of December.
Winckler argued that the public would benefit more if Mayweather performed 100 hours of community service with children.
Mayweather is also on the hook for 40 hours of community service with the Las Vegas Habitat for Humanity Project under a South Carolina federal judge’s order for dodging a deposition in a music rights lawsuit.
Mayweather has a Jan. 31 deadline on that court order. Habitat for Humanity official Catherine Barnes said Wednesday that Mayweather had not started to log the hours.
Saragosa said Wednesday she was persuaded to jail Mayweather following his admission that he hit Harris and twisted her arm, and that two of their children, ages 9 and 10, witnessed the attack.
Mayweather threatened to kill or make Harris “disappear,” Saragosa said, and their 10-year-old son ran from the house and jumped a back gate to fetch security. Mayweather had taken cellphones belonging to Harris and the two boys.
“Things could have gotten more out of hand than they did,” the judge said.
Luzaich cited three previous domestic violence arrests for scuffles involving Harris, with whom Mayweather has three children, and three cases involving another woman with whom Mayweather has one child.
Fines were of no consequence to Mayweather, Luzaich said.
Mayweather goes by the nickname “Money,” and was guaranteed $25 million for the Ortiz fight that won him the WBC’s welterweight belt. Mayweather earned more than $20 million in a previous fight against “Sugar” Shane Mosley.
Mayweather has been arrested several times since 2002 in battery and violence cases in Las Vegas and in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich.
He was convicted in 2002 of misdemeanor battery stemming from a fight with two women at a Las Vegas nightclub. He received a suspended one-year jail sentence and was ordered to undergo impulse-control counseling.
He was fined in Grand Rapids in February 2005 and ordered to perform community service after pleading no contest to misdemeanor assault and battery for a bar fight.
He was acquitted by a Nevada jury in July 2005 after being accused of hitting and kicking Harris during an argument outside a Las Vegas nightclub.
He was acquitted again in October of misdemeanor allegations that he threatened two homeowner association security guards during a parking ticket argument.
Mayweather also faces a civil lawsuit in Las Vegas from two men who allege he orchestrated a shooting attack on them outside a skating rink in 2009. Police have never accused Mayweather of firing shots and he has never been criminally charged in the case.
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press
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An MMA Christmas List
By Brian Knapp
Read more from Brian at the premier MMA website www.sherdog.com
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There was no gold on the line, only prestige and pride. Yet, in the UFC 139 headliner on Nov. 19 in San Jose, Calif., Dan Henderson and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua fought tooth and toenail for five rounds. Blood and sweat were shed liberally.
Powered by his thunderous right hand, Henderson looked to have the Brazilian on the brink of defeat more than once. He won rounds one through three with his heavy punches but ran into trouble in the fourth, where he found himself winded, wobbled and nearly undressed by a jarring Rua uppercut. The 2005 Pride Fighting Championships middleweight grand prix winner grounded Henderson and kept him there in the fifth round, moving to full mount on five separate occasions and dropping punches as he worked through the exhaustion.
A clear contender for “Fight of the Year,” the Henderson-Rua classic will go down as one of the most memorable fights of 2011, all because of a subtle but shrewd change in policy from Dana White. In April, the UFC president announced plans to incorporate five-round non-title fights into the matchmaking rotation. Henderson-Rua was the second such bout to feature the change, and the fans were the beneficiaries.
Upping the frequency of five-round matches tops my Christmas wish list.
More Five-Round Fights: If Henderson-Rua taught us anything, it was that 10 additional minutes have the potential to change everything. Through three rounds, Henderson had established himself as the superior fighter. Rua survived his onslaught, however, and rounds four and five provided him with an opportunity for redemption. The Brazilian came ever so close to securing it, as he spent nearly the entire fifth round mounted on a fading Henderson, leading many to argue he deserved a 10-8 frame in his favor and a draw on the judges’ scorecards. Henderson won a narrow verdict, but without the fourth and fifth rounds, a true classic would have been replaced by a one-sided 30-27 nod for the 41-year-old two-time Olympian. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future the UFC will consider making all main and co-main event fights five rounds.
Less Referee Involvement: Nothing drives up the old blood pressure quite like a hyperactive referee bowing to pressures outside the cage. Wrestling, clinching and grappling have been and always will be integral parts of high-level mixed martial arts. If a fighter on the bottom desires a restart on the feet, force him to get there himself. The reliance of one-dimensional fighters on external intervention has become quite an annoyance — and an unnecessary one. Fights should not include referees offering instructions while hovering above two engaged fighters on the ground or on the cage. Unless a complete and hopeless stalemate becomes apparent with neither competitor gaining an advantage, allow them to do their jobs. In other sports, quality referees are often defined by how little we notice them. Some MMA officials could learn a thing or two from the concept.
Fewer Boo Birds: Every fan hopes to be entertained when the fists and feet fly. However, the demand that every fight come through in that regard is out of touch with reality. Proper respect is due to any man or woman who enters the cage to risk life and limb in the spirit of competition. Not every match will turn into a barnburner. There will be plenty of duds along the way. To hear boos — alcohol-induced or otherwise — cascading down around two professional fighters who have spent hours upon hours, days upon days and years upon years honing their skills has grown increasingly unnerving. MMA fans need to come to grips with one truth: the bottom line in sports is winning, not entertainment. Sometimes, the two go hand-in-hand; many times, they do not. Fighters from various backgrounds — some of them flashy and stylish, others downright boring — will continue to do what they do best in the pursuit of victory. That drive to succeed exists in the DNA of any accomplished athlete. For every Anderson Silva, there is a Jon Fitch. A true MMA fan has an appreciation and a respect for both.
Professionalism, Please: The UFC created some needless negative publicity with how it handled the situations involving Forrest Griffin, Miguel Torres and Rashad Evans. In short, all three made unsavory and unfortunate comments in various public forums: Griffin and Torres on Twitter, Evans at the end of a high-profile press conference for the UFC’s forthcoming second appearance on the Fox network. Griffin and Evans, two promotional lynchpins, kept their jobs. Torres lost his. Double standards have no place at the professional level. The UFC should establish a code of conduct and abide by it. If Torres’ words were grounds for termination, then it stands to reason that Griffin and Evans should have been given the boot, as well. Generally speaking, the sport of mixed martial arts could use an injection or two of professionalism — from those who compete in the cage, from those charged with promoting fighters and fights, from those who carry the gavel in the form of a scorecard and from those who cover the sport in the media on a day-to-day basis. Am I the only one who cringes at the sight of “journalists” walking the red carpet like celebrities?
