“Canelo Alvarez and I have big fights coming up this weekend. His is the ring and mine in treatment.
“I will not be at the fight to cheer Canelo to victory since I have voluntarily admitted myself into a treatment facility.
“I explained this to Canelo and he understood that my health and longterm recovery from my disease must come first.
“Thank you for your understanding. I ask for your support and privacy during this difficult time for me and my family.”
De La Hoya said he considered suicide at his lowest point before his previous rehab stint, and described his ongoing quest for sobriety as “the toughest fight of my life.” We wish De La Hoya the best of luck in his recovery.
(ODLH with Alvarez at a media workout in April. / Photo via Getty)
“Canelo Alvarez and I have big fights coming up this weekend. His is the ring and mine in treatment.
“I will not be at the fight to cheer Canelo to victory since I have voluntarily admitted myself into a treatment facility.
“I explained this to Canelo and he understood that my health and longterm recovery from my disease must come first.
“Thank you for your understanding. I ask for your support and privacy during this difficult time for me and my family.”
De La Hoya said he considered suicide at his lowest point before his previous rehab stint, and described his ongoing quest for sobriety as “the toughest fight of my life.” We wish De La Hoya the best of luck in his recovery.
As is tradition, Showtime has previewed the upcoming blockbuster fight with a series of “All Access” specials giving us a behind the scenes look at both men’s training camps. You will hear Mayweather touch on all the bullet points he’s become known for — his fame, his fortune, “I am boxing,” me, me, ME! — while battling an opponent he has been unable to defeat his entire life: Third person self-narrative. You will also hear Alvarez dish on respect and roosters with Golden Boy President, Oscar De La Hoya, who insists that Alvarez will finish Mayweather inside of eight rounds. We’d love to believe him, but many a man have made such a claim (or something similar to it) only to be outgunned by the WBC welterweight and WBA (Super) Light Middleweight champion.
Check out part 1 of “All Access” above. Parts 2 and 3 are after the jump.
As is tradition, Showtime has previewed the upcoming blockbuster fight with a series of “All Access” specials giving us a behind the scenes look at both men’s training camps. You will hear Mayweather touch on all the bullet points he’s become known for — his fame, his fortune, “I am boxing,” me, me, ME! — while battling an opponent he has been unable to defeat his entire life: Third person self-narrative. You will also hear Alvarez dish on respect and roosters with Golden Boy President, Oscar De La Hoya, who insists that Alvarez will finish Mayweather inside of eight rounds. We’d love to believe him, but many a man have made such a claim (or something similar to it) only to be outgunned by the WBC welterweight and WBA (Super) Light Middleweight champion.
Check out part 1 of “All Access” above. Parts 2 and 3 are after the jump.
Looks like former longtime UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva has a bone to pick with undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Check out what the pound-for-pound great had to say about “Money” during an interview with Sway Calloway on…
Looks like former longtime UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva has a bone to pick with undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Check out what the pound-for-pound great had to say about “Money” during an interview with Sway Calloway on Sway in the Morning (YouTube channel Sway’s Universe):
Boxers have the great story. I respect for boxing. Floyd Mayweather? I don’t know this guy. Is he Papa Smurf? Mayweather is good boxing. This is my opinion. The guy no respect me. I respect all the guys in the world. Mayweather is a part of this story in the world. I’m part of the sport in the world. Mayweather need to respect this, but this guy no respect nothing. Sorry, but I no respect Mayweather.
The latest news should come as no surprise, considering Mayweather said he didn’t know who “The Spider” is in an interview with EsNews last month.
Despite a disappointing knockout loss at the hands of new 185-pound kingpin Chris Weidman at UFC 162 last month, many still consider the Brazilian knockout artist the greatest MMA fighter of all time.
Prior to the loss, Silva had won an incredible 17 straight bouts, 16 of which occurred inside the Octagon, also setting the UFC middleweight record of 10 consecutive successful title defenses.
While naysayers have knocked the 38-year-old’s strength of competition during that roughly seven-year time frame, Silva notched stoppage wins over the likes of Rich Franklin (twice), Dan Henderson, ChaelSonnen (twice), YushinOkami and VitorBelfort.
Silva will have a chance to avenge the devastating loss to “The All-American” at UFC 168, with the rematch set to take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev., Dec. 28.
Conversely, the 36-year-old Mayweather has been going strong inside the ring since October of 1996 and is a five-division world champion with an incredible 44-0 professional record.
His next challenge will be light middleweight stud Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who boasts a 42-0-1 record of his own despite being just 23 years old.
Alvarez’s WBC and The Ring light middleweight titles will be on the line, while Mayweather will defend his WBA (super) light middleweight strap.
That showdown also takes place at the MGM Grand and is just a couple weeks away, with the event set for Sept. 14.
JohnHeinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com.
It’s time for the bleeding hearts who are beating the drum for poor mixed martial artists to dig a hole somewhere and jump in it.
The cries of fighters being unable to feed their families, train properly, and remain competitive in the harsh world of pr…
It’s time for the bleeding hearts who are beating the drum for poor mixed martial artists to dig a hole somewhere and jump in it.
The cries of fighters being unable to feed their families, train properly, and remain competitive in the harsh world of professional combat need to stop.
Grown-up men and women are making suitable choices in a business for grown-ups here. In all honesty, there’s no place for big babies and childish complaints. In particular, it seems odd to complain that it doesn’t rain money in the fight game.
There’s even less place for those who claim that boxing is a better paying gig and yet mixed martial artists are getting hosed every time they strap on the gloves.
Get over it. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.
How do the paragraphs above read?
Akin to something you’d see from Dana White at a press scrum? Much like when a journalist who probably should know better prods him on complaints of an unknown fighter being underpaid.
If those paragraphs aren’t exactly on the money, they’re close. White doesn’t have a lot of time for such questions, considering he’s probably answered the same one in some form or another a million times in the past few years.
And do you know something? He’s 100 percent right.
The UFC pays what it pays. If you go out and perform, you’ll make more money. If you don’t, you won’t. In that regard, it’s an equal opportunity employer.
Nobody forced mixed martial artists to join the trade. If you don’t want to train eight weeks to make $8,000 for eating another person’s shin live on pay-per-view, no one is saying you have to.
And that sure isn’t a call to move to the way boxing does business, despite what some of the more noted squeakywheels on the roster have suggested.
Yes, the top guys in boxing make utterly insane amounts of money. Floyd Mayweather made a guaranteed $32 million to fight Robert Guerrero ($3 million guaranteed) in May.
No, every guy who ever mastered the sweet science has not made the GDP of Jordan just for showing up.
Other disclosed numbers from combatants on the undercard of that Mayweather fight? $165,000, $25,000, $100,000, and $60,000, plus a couple of $375,000 sums for a title fight.
They are all very respectable numbers, but not the type that anyone in the UFC has ever made in the history of the business.
Actually, on the last FOX card—one that was not propped up by the direct revenue stream of pay-per-view—fighters went home with numbers like $58,000 (twice), $84,000, $156,000, $74,000, and $66,000.
Certainly not numbers that are so far behind those of the squared circle that the vociferous pay-related mudslinging to which White is regularly subjected seems justified.
Even more reasonable when one considers that MMA is still, like it or not, a niche sport that simply doesn’t draw the eyes that boxing does. Especially boxing with a Mayweather or Pacquiao on the marquee.
Considering that, it’s even more remarkable that the worst disclosed payday for a fighter on that FOX card was $8,000 while you can’t even find numbers for guys in similar positions on the Mayweather card because they’re so financially irrelevant.
Everyone wants to make more money in this world and combat athletes are no different. They want to make as much as they can, while they can, and they have a short window to make that happen.
But it’s time to stop complaining about what the UFC pays. It’s even more important to stop making comparisons to boxing in the hope of turning things on to that line of thinking – it’s only going to lead to Georges St-Pierre making $25 million to show up while Andy Ogle gets $60 and a parking pass.
Is that really better? No, it’s not.
Sometimes it’s better to sit back and enjoy a sport instead of digging into every corner of it looking for things to complain about.
Long-time UFC commentator Joe Rogan had some harsh words for boxing’s pound-for-pound king, Floyd “Money” Mayweather.
Talking with Inked, a magazine dedicated to all things tattoo, in their August issue, the MMA aficionado had this t…
Long-time UFC commentator Joe Rogan had some harsh words for boxing’s pound-for-pound king, Floyd “Money” Mayweather.
Talking with Inked, a magazine dedicated to all things tattoo, in their August issue, the MMA aficionado had this to say:
MMA for sure is more of a realistic contest, more of a realistic test as far as using the body in martial arts competition. Although not considered a martial art, boxing is really a martial art. It’s a very limited martial art as long as you agree to just box…but in an actual physical fight against someone who’s just a wrestler, you’re going to get killed. Floyd Mayweather would get killed by an average college wrestler. There would be no competition. If you took Floyd Mayweather today and made him fight against your average college wrestler, that college wrestler is going to shoot on him, pick him up, drop him on his head and knock him out. There’s nothing Floyd can do about it…A judo guy would do the same thing to him. A JuJitsu guy would strangle him, no question about it.
The MMA vs. boxing debate has persisted for years, and Mayweather and his outspoken handler, Leonard Ellerbe, have helped fan the flames for years. The two tend to get harsh responses from noteworthy members of the MMA community.
The most famous example of this came in 2009, when Mayweather, while talking with CBS Sports, stated (via Yahoo! Sports): “there’s no white fighters in boxing that’s dominating, so they had to go to something else and start something new.” That sort of story, by the way, has popped up every two or three months for the last four years.
Boxers have had a few chances to ply their trade in the cage in the past. Ray Mercer knocked out former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in just nine seconds in 2009. Truer to what Rogan discussed, in 2010, former two-division UFC champion Randy Couture dominated James Toney on the ground en route to a first-round submission victory.
Historically, when practitioners of single combat sports have met head-on, grappling-focused arts have typically beat out those that focus on striking. The original UFC, UFC 1, was dedicated to having fighters from different backgrounds square off. During the event, Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Royce Gracie would make at-the-time 29-5 boxer Art Jimmerson tap and would later beat Dutch kickboxer Gerard Gordeau.
Additionally, a substantial portion of the UFC’s roster over the years have come from either college or high school wrestling backgrounds. A substantially smaller number have come from boxing backgrounds.
While Mayweather is unquestionably the best boxer in the world today, there are few observers who would disagree with Rogan’s assertion. That likely matters very little to “Money,” though, as he continues to rake in tens of millions of dollars each year.
Looks like former longtime UFC middleweight champion 
