by Brent Brookhouse on Aug 5, 2009 9:43 AM EDT in News 32 comments
Scott over at BadLeftHook posted early this morning that Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s uncle and trainer Roger Mayweather was arrested and charged with coercian with force and battery strangulation in Las Vegas. He goes on to explain how this could lead to a delay in the fight:
From a boxing standpoint (since I don't know much about the law other than how to not break it and that things like murder are wrong), what really worries me is Floyd Jr. could surely use this distraction as an excuse to bail again. Mayweather-Marquez was called off the first time officially due to a rib injury to Floyd, and a lot of the other rumor was that it just wasn't selling tickets and the buzz wasn't there. I don't think the buzz is there this time, either. Let's face it: This is a big fight in boxing, but not beyond that. Now matched against UFC 103, PPV numbers would take a hit.
And it's all about how many sales you can bring up at the negotiating table if Mayweather-Pacquiao ever really gets discussed.
Of course, Floyd has his father there as a very capable fill-in if Roger winds up in a lot of trouble, and I don't think Floyd is learning a whole lot in camps these days anyway. He could probably train himself and let me talk to him in the corner and be fine.
It's obviously too early to know if the fight will be postponed but the possibility is out there. Knowing Floyd and his ego I could very easilly see him using this as an excuse to get out of having his PPV go head to head againt UFC 103. There was a lot of talk that much of the UFC's strong push to get Fedor on the roster was to have a Lesnar/Fedor fight to demolish Mayweather/Marquez in terms of PPV buys.
Now we're looking at Vitor Belfort vs. Rich Franklin as the headlining fight which is an okay draw but it's a good enough fight and the UFC is hot enough right now that it's still likely to beat Mayweather in a head-to-head. They already found a way to postpone the fight once already and managed to get the fight scheduled for Mexican Independence Day which should have done extra buys as the Mexican crowd tunes in at parties..etc. It has become more and more clear that Floyd/Marquez won't win the buyrate battle and rather than having to face facts I'm willing to bet that he pushes the fight back and talks a lot about how they would have outdrawn the UFC if it had gone off as planned.
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