Floyd Mayweather, Don’t Go “Soft” On Us

by Charles Jay

I feel for Floyd Mayweather; don’t you?

I mean, the guy drives around what, eighteen Rolls Royces? I’ve seen the condo development where he has one of his residences in the Miami Beach area, and the guy’s been living a life of such luxury that when he comes to south Florida, he leaves that place vacant and stays at the Fountainbleu. With two Rolls Royces parked outside, I might add.

Photo: Hogan Photos/ Golden Boy

The guy burns hundred-dollar bills and allegedly bets hundreds of thousands of bucks on sporting events.

Do you really expect a guy like that to order off the prison menu?

Mayweather wanted out of jail early, with the opportunity to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest. His petition, which was filed just a few days ago, states that “Mr. Mayweather is not a problem in-mate.” He was twelve days into his sentence! He was immediately complaining about the quality of the food and water. That’s not a problem?

His attorneys claim that his punishment is “cruel and inhuman,” and may lead to “the onset of depression.” But hey, at least he’ll have those memories of being able to spit at the occasional security guard, or sticking his wealth in everybody’s face in nightclubs, where he’s been known to set C-notes on fire. That’s not enough to look back on during those long, long 87 days of incarceration? Jeez, you’d think the guy was doing life. Can’t he curl up to a good book? Maybe something from Dr. Seuss?

Appropriately, his request was flatly denied by Judge Melissa Saragosa, who had the audacity to suggest that Mayweather eat what the other inmates have to eat and basically do as he was told.

These were actually essential elements of his case: Mayweather brought a doctor in as part of his evidence, and the doctor explained that he was “losing muscle tone” because he wasn’t taking in enough calories, and “doesn’t enjoy tap water.”

Dr. Robert Voy also had the temerity to write this in an affidavit: “I am concerned about Floyd withdrawing, developing anger he cannot dissipate through the usual means of dedicated exercise and training.” Has the AMA made a review of this guy lately?

And there is much panic over what attorneys said was “huge emotional harm” he might experience as a result of his conditions, not to mention “irreversible damage to Mr. Mayweather’s physique.”

Honestly, who is supposed to really give a shit?

More from the “Who Gives a Shit” department: Floyd has also made it clear that without a lot of room to exercise, he may never fight again, and thus the world would be deprived of more posturing in the name of wanting to fight Manny Pacquiao, without that ever being the case.

Mayweather may have watched the movie “Bugsy” too many times, because he seems to be under the impression that when you’re a “celebrity inmate,” you can have a phone in your jail cell (I guess you’d call that a ‘cell’ phone), with conjugal visitors around the clock and Steak Delmonico served to you by unformed waiters.

But you have to love the prosecutor. Lisa Luzaich, Her reply to all this? “It’s jail. Where did he think he was going? The Four Seasons?” I give her credit for holding back. I am firmly convinced Mayweather was crying so loud that she could have successfully convinced him to fight Pacquiao for about $1.99 if she let him move into a bigger cell.

I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that he had a moment like the Tim Robbins character had on his first night in jail in “The Shawshank Redemption,” but could it be that at some point during his first ten days or so behind bars, he has already gone from “Floyd Joy” to a genuine “Pretty Boy Floyd”?

I mean, what would 50 Cent think of that?

Actually, there hasn’t been enough of a chance for that to happen. He’s been on 23-hour lockdown. Mayweather has complained about wanting to be in the general population, but he hasn’t been, because measures had been taken to protect him due to his celebrity status.

In that way, the lawyers claimed that he is being treated “differently than other similarly-situated defendants which is not fair.” Yet he wants better food and bottled water, which they don’t necessarily have.

Such “administrative segregation” was imposed because the people from the jail are also taking their own liability into consideration. In other words, if he can’t establish a rapport very quickly with some of the other guys in there, who don’t exactly venerate him, they may just exterminate him, if you know what I mean.

Poor Floyd; Dr. Voy believes that he “will wither away as he sits and lies in his cell 23 hours a day.”

Now here’s the dilemma: when you ask for relief because you haven’t gotten special privileges and special food, you kind of hurt yourself with the general population. Floyd may be a bad-ass with the likes of Victor Ortiz and Arturo Gatti in the ring and unarmed security guards or ex-girlfriends on the street, but in the yard, at 5’8″ and 155 pounds, give or take ten (depending on what meals he has refused to eat lately), he becomes a notch on the belt for any cluster of bigger, badder street guys who may be doing a longer stretch, are also members of the “Who Gives a Shit” department and would love to have a story they can tell their anti-social grandchildren (on visiting days of course).

Yeah, I would say that the overall strategy is, was and will be doomed to failure.

We suggested in a previous story that with the $32 million he made for fighting Miguel Cotto, Mayweather could have bought 537,800 cartons of cigarettes for his fellow inmates.

All things considered, that wouldn’t be a bad “Plan B” for him.