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W.W.F.D; Broner should ask, What Would Floyd Do?

It’s been a long time since Floyd Mayweather was 23, but I think it’s safe to say he wasn’t the kind of puncher to attract the 1.5 million viewers that tuned in to see Adrien Broner last weekend. I do remember an ill-fated stab at repackaging Boxing for the “Hip Hop Generation” called KO Nation back in 2000 that fell flat despite a “then” Emanuel Burton actually giving Floyd his toughest fight to date. Back then Floyd was only known to the Boxing heads and insiders despite winning his first belt 16 fights in against a much more respected foe than Antonio Demarco. By the time he started receiving the treatment Adrien Broner is getting from ESPN he was pushing 30; which lent an authenticity to his unlikeability-he was pissed off because he was finally in the money. For the last week we’ve seen and heard Adrien Broner everywhere and he’s promising he too will be in the big money category, not because he’s a great young talent, nor because there’s a big named Mexican rival out there, but because Floyd (his mentor) told him so. Well that’s real nice of him to promise the kid that the financial realities of the business that he exploited will still be there if he would just use the “how to become rich and unlikable in Boxing” template he designed , but it aint that easy.

Boxing is different, this isn’t like LeBron and Kobe benefiting financially from the marketplace created by Michael Jordan- each fighter is a unique case and subject to the landscape and timing. Just watching the Lightweight Champion do the media rounds I can tell he isn’t the personality that Floyd was, he’s a lot younger and not as compelling a subject. He tries too hard to come off as the next Floyd; something he should know isn’t respected no matter how polarizing the original article was during his career. He’s much more offensive than Floyd and even told him he’d have kicked his ass (when Floyd was 23) but when asked about the possibility of doing it in real life he demurs- and this could cost him millions. Boxing is a blood sport, and one of the oldest traditions is the old being eaten by the young-because that is the way nature intended it to be. There are no sacred cows, and you can’t be a young Lion, see that old Lion sitting on the hill with all of the food and let him get away. Watching this dynamic play out is unsettling to me because Broner won’t be what he thinks he’s going to be without Mayweathers head on his mantle, and Mayweather is shrewd enough to know it.

It’s the worst kept secret in Boxing, even Max Kellerman gets asked in the street if Broner will fight Floyd but “The Problem” is too caught up in idol worship to take any talk of this seriously. Sugar Ray Robinson is the greatest fighter to draw breath, you can stack Broner on top of Mayweather and still not equal him, but even he was young once-his idol was Henry Armstrong. He loved “Hurricane Hank” so much that he beat Fritzie Zivic to avenge his idol; he stated as much in every account of his young career. Boxing in the 1940’s was run differently than it is now, and Armstrong needed the money, so soon after beating Zivic for his “idol” Robinson beat the man he wanted to be like. Adrien Broner loves Floyd no more than Larry Holmes loved Muhammad Ali, the only difference is Larry was a mature family man with priorities-he loved his wife and newborn daughter more than his former boss. Rocky Marciano cried after knocking Joe Louis through the ropes but he was told the public wouldn’t accept him if he did not desecrate the sacred cow. It was cruel, but Boxing is cruel, if friendships “mattered” ask Floyd if he would switch places with Zab Judah-a friend who he meticulously exposed as a mentally fragile frontrunner back in 2006. A much better question for Broner to ask himself is: what would happen if he was a 36 year old “Money” Broner and Floyd Mayweather was a young lion?

Given Broner just signed a 30 month, 6 fight deal with Showtime, a deal that may get into the 250 Million dollar “sphere” Mayweather would tell everyone the old man isn’t worth that kind of money. Mayweather would also point out “correctly” that old man Broner won’t finish that deal, and the only way he could is to fight a bum after Guerrero and a bum after Alvarez. Floyd would tell everyone Adrien is like a Big Brother to him but he’s no longer a “Problem” that it’s time for him to step up and fight the REAL best fighter in the world. Broner could try to ignore him, but Floyd would only persist; “if he loved me, he’d give me an opportunity to feed my family”. If the bigger Broner said he was too big for the kid brother Mayweather wouldn’t be fazed, remember Mayweather and Broner are closer in size and more conceivable that Floyd and Oscar were back in 2007. Even Floyds own father thought he was too small for a De La Hoya who was younger than Floyd is today. Floyd would crash Broner's press conferences as he did when Acelino Freitas and Joel Casamayor faught back in 2002 and he would tell the world all of the things Broner hinted at during his media blitz last week. When Floyd was a Problem he even told Prince Naseem Hamed he’d go to Featherweight to beat him, all for the almighty dollar- and we knew then he was the real deal.

Mentorship, appreciation from an older champion towards a phenom in his division or vicinity is a sham- a psychological layer to keep that younger lion from putting the older fighter on notice. I knew Andre Ward was “the goods” before the Super 6 Tourney ended, but I really knew he was special when Bernard Hopkins “endorsed” him and claimed he wouldn’t fight him because he liked him too much. Right, you can ruin a young, flat footed Kelly Pavlik with no problem but a man who made his bones being an iconoclast wouldn’t want to touch a church boy with a Gold Medal around his neck?. How convenient. Hopkins knew; and he used Boxing’s current political state to avoid the natural process of the young stud letting you know your time is up- so Chad Dawson took the beating. Adrien Broner is not guaranteed riches that equal his talent, Floyd Mayweather knew this and lived it-would he be what he is today had he not caught De La Hoya going out the door?. There’s no guarantee a cash cow of Floyds magnitude will magically be there when Broner is 27 and in case he needs a little Boxing history… most of them ride in on the back of the previous cash cow.

This kid has 30 months or less to become what he will become or he may be looking at Super Fights with the likes of Lucas Matthysse and Danny Garcia. Floyd Mayweather is a master of the psyche job; he isn’t going to just come to Broner because he knows what the kid can do-Broner’s going to have to make himself a problem to ignore. That’s how Floyd became a legend, the highest paid athlete in sports and a role model for Adrien Broner, “making it happen”. The Showtime deal has stipulations, and Broner should be putting out feelers to see if he can get on one of the undercards to showcase himself as a superior product. HBO won’t mind loaning him out, nor be sensitive to the friendship; they have the younger guy so they would love to do business with Showtime as they did when Lennox Lewis ended the Mike Tyson/Showtime farce. It’s dirty, messy, uncomfortable shit, but Boxing is that kind of business- Broner being a veteran of the streets should know this by now. He just may have to do something that he really don’t want to do for money, but it beats what he was doing before and it will be more money than he’s ever seen-besides Floyd would do the same damned thing.

“I hate when people say I only fight for money, of course I do! that’s why they call it Prizefighting you stupid mothafucka”                                          Floyd Mayweather 

NBA Should Give Bosh a "Hall Pass" to Handle Lil Wayne

I’m a Basketball fan, I think they’re the greatest athletes in the world and I love watching them do what they do. To be objective I am neither a Miami Heat nor a Chris Bosh fan, I prefer "bigs" who can eat a little with their backs to the basket, he’s an All Star but not my cup of tea-maybe that’s a sign of my age. However I’ve always loved the way Chris Bosh handled himself as a Black man, I’ve found him to be intelligent, introspective and dignified- something that is unfortunately at a premium today. Watching TV can be a cringe inducing experience for Black folks who think in more broad cultural terms, it can be lonely too because in today’s world as long as your “paid” acting like a debased version of “us” is not only accepted but encouraged. The “Coonery” and willingness to act like animals for the entertainment of whites is lost on the young black and rich, and if anyone points out that the conduct reaffirms racist’s theories about us written over 100 years ago they’ll be called a “Hater”. Myself, I’ve never been scared of being painted by that broad brush because there’s usually nothing fortifying it, ignorance is never prepared to debate merely to defend and deflect- the word “hater” is now used as a slur meant to shame you enough to stop looking. Hip Hop is rife with the word, young black men saying things of no relevance use it to defend ignorance and socialize our people to a culture of lawlessness amongst and against ourselves.

Aliester Crowley the Greatest Satanist wrote: “Do as thou Wilt will be the whole of the Law”.

Jay Z, Hip Hops #1 Sponsor/Warlock/ Freemason transcribed that theory of Moral anarchy on his "Roca wear" brand T shirt to read “Do What Thou Wilt”. I take this to mean Rappers of A List Caliber head no laws, not even the unspoken laws from one brotha to another, the kind of laws that back in the day (if broken) used to get your ass kicked.

Lil Wayne felt blackballed by the Miami Heat Organization because he was banned from NBA Arena’s; instead of using his wealth and influence to go through backroom channels to reinstatement he broke one of man's “laws”. He did “What Thou Wilt” and to hell with basic law, not just moral law but street law. Chris Bosh may be famous, may be in the public eye and may play for the team Wayne believes is responsible for his “ban” but he should not have been violated the way he was over All Star weekend. His wife won’t even be named here out of respect but I’ll say this, her conduct and her past as a single woman was washed away by the vow she took to Chris in front of church and community. We fought so hard to have our marriages respected as people and yet Lil Wayne’s conduct is supported because now we don’t respect ourselves. It’s been building up to this for a while, actually building up to this point when I was young, when we didn’t respect ourselves enough to not exacerbate what was happening between Biggie and Pac either. 

That too escalated because one black man spoke ill of another’s wife, we lost the two greatest Rappers of All-time behind this evil and “Lil Wayne” is what we were left with. By then we’d learned to embrace the disgusting habit of not loving yourself or your brotha enough to pull them aside, by then everybody had 20 nigga’s around them that weren’t exactly there to keep the peace. Diplomacy was a sign of weakness, even though the true rulers of the world use it every day. What Lil Wayne did won’t get the 10,000$ back rumors say Mrs. Bosh “got” him for back when he knew her, and if he were wise he’d have seen it as a fee to get her out of his life. The Hip Hop World believe it or not is filled with a lot of “family men” and guys over 30 and I can’t imagine any of them being married to church girls so it would be hypocritical of them to support this childish bullshit from a man over 30 who call himself “Lil”.

Chances are, if Wayne marries he too will marry someone who once dated an athlete or fellow rapper (because they all date from the same pool) so tell me would it be OK to convict her publicly for her past behavior? Would it be fair for some of the men who’ve "known" Wayne’s “babies’ mama’s” intimately to call up TMZ to tell them “I crushed that”. It is clear from his lyrics lately he isn’t man enough to take care of his own dignity let alone the dignity of black and brown women-should we just shrug and say ‘oh well, I guess that’s’ just hip hop’. Is it OK that a league that makes Billions from a 76% African American workforce to do business with someone stupid enough to spit lyrics like “I beat that pussy up like Emmitt Till” during Black History Month?. Why would LeBron, a man who hangs with the kind of guys who buy Rappers accept an apology from a fast fading clown? A clown so desperate he’d dress up like Satan (symbolically selling his soul) in his latest video to cling to whatever’s left of the shiny things Corporate conglomerates throw at coons like him. What does “Lil” Wayne owe Chris Bosh man to man? And what does he deserve? and are the two mutually exclusive?.

A Reinstatement Plan for “Lil Wayne”

Pat Riley brought this group together on the concept of family and if he is who I’ve heard he is he has to be as pissed off about this as anyone. He also has to look at Mrs. Bosh at functions and ceremonies just like Chris has to look at her when he comes home at night. The High Road is a hard road but there are times you have to let someone know you are willing to roll off into the gutter to make a point. Riley should invite Lil Wayne to the Miami Heat facilities and air out any grievances man to man, no homies, none of the clowns that make Rappers do things they would never do by themselves. Show him how it’s done, how honorable men communicate with one another even when they don’t agree because no matter how big Hip Hop is it will never take the place of mature discussion. Negotiate a public apology and allow Wayne to have full input in the wording so that he can save face to the few miscreants who actually consider him a man. Predictably Wayne will broach the topic of tickets and access; and Riley should be open to this because this “person’ is a celebrity worthy of consideration. Make the tickets conditional, and walk Wayne over to a training area (well padded) where no one is, nobody but Chris Bosh fresh off of bench pressing Wayne’s bodyweight. Tell him, “what you felt comfortable saying in front of people you should say in front of this man all alone”. Lock the door, tell him “Wayne, you can come out of here anyway you choose, but you’re going to have to deal with Chris if you want access to this franchise and EVERYTHING that comes with it”. It’s only fair, Bosh didn’t ban him but Bosh should be the one to let him back in, and if the punk comes out of that room busted up then you can say Bosh did “as thou wilt”. Besides, he’s a sicko he’d find some way to rap about the ass whoopin and sell it because that’s the kind of person he is.

I Can Dream, can’t I? I mean I’m only “doing me” Right?