Mayweathers glad to be back on good terms
Father-son relationship was strained, but now they praise each other
In the most public eruption of their volatile relationship, Floyd Mayweather Jr. shouted Floyd Mayweather Sr. out of his gym on HBO’s “24/7” before a fight against Victor Ortiz.
Bodyguards restrained Mayweather Jr. as he insulted his father, the boxer railing that paternal influence had no positive impact on his undefeated boxing career.
“I’m not no junior,” said Mayweather Jr., concluding a fiveminute outburst.
Four years later, Mayweather Jr. has flipped his stance as radically as a fighter who discovers he’s ambidextrous. Not only is Mayweather Jr. employing Mayweather Sr. as his trainer for the fight of the century against Manny Pacquiao on May 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, but the son also is defending and praising his father at every opportunity.
“My father deserves the credit because I probably wouldn’t be a fighter if it wasn’t for my father,” Mayweather Jr. said last week at a media workout.
Only in a relationship this notoriously fragmented could the force that ultimately brought father and son together be one that initially tore them apart — jail sentences. Mayweather Jr. decided to reconcile with Mayweather Sr. while serving two months in the Clark County Detention Center in 2012 for a domestic violence misdemeanor when reflection left him upset that his children had no relationship with their grandfather.
The Pacquiao fight will be the fifth consecutive bout, start- ing with a 2013 win over Robert Guerrero, that Mayweather Sr. is back in his son’s corner. Mayweather Sr. raised both of his arms like a fighter celebrating a big win while discussing what it means to share such a historic moment last week.
“I never expected nothing this big,” Mayweather Sr. said. “This is bigger than coming on this