By Jerry Izenberg/Columnist Emeritus
"Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’’
“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll
‘‘This is all coming from Floyd Mayweather Sr. Just because he’s a convicted drug dealer doesn’t make him a drug expert.”
Â…Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao’s trainer
Back when O.J. Simpson filled the television screens of America ad nausea, a woman named Rosa Lopez was making chopped liver out of her own testimony on behalf of Mr. Simpson. So the late Johnny Cochrane tried to untangle the net she was throwing over her own credibility by asking:
‘‘Isn’t it true, Mrs. Lopez, that in your native language ‘yes’ often means ‘no’ and ‘no’ often means ‘yes’?’’
When she answered ‘yes’ nobody knew what the hell she was saying, including Mrs. Lopez. But half the courtroom nodded its collective head.
So where have you gone Rosa Lopez?
Every time Oscar De La Hoya, Richard Schaefer, and assorted Mayweathers speak, write or grunt, a hungry America is in desperate need of a translation. On Tuesday, the high commands of Team Mayweather and Team Pacquiao were sequestered for nine hours with a retired judge named Daniel Weinstein. A source familiar with the negotiations says that some of the time the warring orators were actually in separate rooms.
The issue of course was the Mayweather-De La Hoya-Schaefer Axis inference that Manny Pacquiao is in need of special blood tests to prove he isn’t on some kind of steroid or human growth drug for which he shows no symptoms in the first place. Not that any of them except Floyd Sr. has actually said he is, but on any given day Floyd Sr. will say anything.
But the rest of Floyd Jr.’s Mouseketeers are careful to employ what one day historians will cite as the Tevye Approach. You may recall Tevye as the hero of “Fiddler on the Roof” whose answer to everything was ‘‘I think not ... but on the other hand ...’’ Inference is their daily bread.
Before we parse the actual logic and vocabulary these bafflers use let us pause for a moment to thank Judge Weinstein.
Thank? Hell, that doesn’t begin to say it. Say huzzah, your honor. Say bless you your judgeship.
After all, the judge has done what nobody else could. He has imposed a gag order on this chorus of wounded water buffaloes. And let us give praise for the beautiful sound of their silence Wednesday morning. Wednesday, he even gave us a bonus by putting them on a private conference call.
That silence in itself speaks volumes. Telling fight promoters not to speak is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. But thanks to the judge we now have temporary but blessed silence.
One of the solutions on the table would have both men fighting somebody else in March and then meeting each other in the late summer or autumn. There is too much money at stake not to work this out. After all it was the promoters who started the Great Blood Debate and the last promoter not to believe in the healing power of a fistful of millions hasn’t been born yet and both his potential parents are dead.
What started as what passed for strategy will end up as a busted poker bluff.
Unless there is a drastic change this week, it appears that this fight is off for now. It looks as though Pacquiao will fight Yuri Foreman in Las Vegas in March while Mayweather will fight Paulie Malignaggi in either Vegas or New York that same month. Both fights should be attended by acres of empty seats.
What intrigues me, however, is whether Judge Weinstein will have anything to say about the fact that Golden Boy, which has a small piece of Pacquiao’s contract is attacking the fighter it allegedly represents on behalf of the fighter it wholly represents for this proposed fight.
Unless you have been collecting rare butterfly specimens in the Mato Grosso these past three weeks you damned sure know that the sound and fury from the Mayweather, Sr., Oscar and Mr. Schaefer is over their obsession with the state of Pacquiao’s blood. They have already had three suggestions who should take it and why it should be drawn. If you didn’t know better you’d have to wander whether they are fight promoters or desperately anemic vampires.
Well, beginning with Schaefer, logic has been on the longest lunch break with this group since Judge Crater grabbed his coat and told his secretary ‘‘see you in a few decades — maybe.’’
When Golden Boy (the company) represented Shane Mosley, an ‘‘accidental’’ (he said) steroid user in the Balco scandal for his fight against Zab Judah, it was Mr. Schaefer who babbled:
‘‘Whatever test the Nevada Commission wants Shane will take but we are not going to do other tests (as Judah demanded). Shane is not a cheater and does not need to be treated like one.’’
That was then and this is now.
And ‘‘now’’ (with neither logic nor evidence) he explains his demand for outside blood tests by saying ‘‘I have educated myself since then. I know the difference between blood and urine tests.’’
Congratulations, Richard. Here’s a hint in case you forget. One liquid is red. One is yellow. The man’s thirst for knowledge knows no bounds. With a banker’s arrogance he says he knows more about steroids than most sports writers. He claims they don’t know the difference between blood and urine testing. Funny, most of us have been writing about them for decades while he while he was allegedly ‘‘educating’’ himself.
Meanwhile the actual Golden Boy (fairly tarnished by the beating Pacquiao gave him) exhibits the kind of logic worthy of “Alice in Wonderland.” After Pacquiao made him quit on his stool, he said that Pacquiao really didn’t hit hard, leading you to believe Oscar had been stoned into submission by a barrage of wet marshmallows. Now he suddenly reverses his field and says Pacquiao’s punches felt the same as Mosley and Vargas (both flunkers of steroid tests). As a blogger he is about as good a fighter as he was that night he froze against Pacquiao.
If the fight does not get made for March — and I think it won’t — they could still fight in the late summer or early fall.
"Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’’
“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll
‘‘This is all coming from Floyd Mayweather Sr. Just because he’s a convicted drug dealer doesn’t make him a drug expert.”
Â…Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao’s trainer
Back when O.J. Simpson filled the television screens of America ad nausea, a woman named Rosa Lopez was making chopped liver out of her own testimony on behalf of Mr. Simpson. So the late Johnny Cochrane tried to untangle the net she was throwing over her own credibility by asking:
‘‘Isn’t it true, Mrs. Lopez, that in your native language ‘yes’ often means ‘no’ and ‘no’ often means ‘yes’?’’
When she answered ‘yes’ nobody knew what the hell she was saying, including Mrs. Lopez. But half the courtroom nodded its collective head.
So where have you gone Rosa Lopez?
Every time Oscar De La Hoya, Richard Schaefer, and assorted Mayweathers speak, write or grunt, a hungry America is in desperate need of a translation. On Tuesday, the high commands of Team Mayweather and Team Pacquiao were sequestered for nine hours with a retired judge named Daniel Weinstein. A source familiar with the negotiations says that some of the time the warring orators were actually in separate rooms.
The issue of course was the Mayweather-De La Hoya-Schaefer Axis inference that Manny Pacquiao is in need of special blood tests to prove he isn’t on some kind of steroid or human growth drug for which he shows no symptoms in the first place. Not that any of them except Floyd Sr. has actually said he is, but on any given day Floyd Sr. will say anything.
But the rest of Floyd Jr.’s Mouseketeers are careful to employ what one day historians will cite as the Tevye Approach. You may recall Tevye as the hero of “Fiddler on the Roof” whose answer to everything was ‘‘I think not ... but on the other hand ...’’ Inference is their daily bread.
Before we parse the actual logic and vocabulary these bafflers use let us pause for a moment to thank Judge Weinstein.
Thank? Hell, that doesn’t begin to say it. Say huzzah, your honor. Say bless you your judgeship.
After all, the judge has done what nobody else could. He has imposed a gag order on this chorus of wounded water buffaloes. And let us give praise for the beautiful sound of their silence Wednesday morning. Wednesday, he even gave us a bonus by putting them on a private conference call.
That silence in itself speaks volumes. Telling fight promoters not to speak is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. But thanks to the judge we now have temporary but blessed silence.
One of the solutions on the table would have both men fighting somebody else in March and then meeting each other in the late summer or autumn. There is too much money at stake not to work this out. After all it was the promoters who started the Great Blood Debate and the last promoter not to believe in the healing power of a fistful of millions hasn’t been born yet and both his potential parents are dead.
What started as what passed for strategy will end up as a busted poker bluff.
Unless there is a drastic change this week, it appears that this fight is off for now. It looks as though Pacquiao will fight Yuri Foreman in Las Vegas in March while Mayweather will fight Paulie Malignaggi in either Vegas or New York that same month. Both fights should be attended by acres of empty seats.
What intrigues me, however, is whether Judge Weinstein will have anything to say about the fact that Golden Boy, which has a small piece of Pacquiao’s contract is attacking the fighter it allegedly represents on behalf of the fighter it wholly represents for this proposed fight.
Unless you have been collecting rare butterfly specimens in the Mato Grosso these past three weeks you damned sure know that the sound and fury from the Mayweather, Sr., Oscar and Mr. Schaefer is over their obsession with the state of Pacquiao’s blood. They have already had three suggestions who should take it and why it should be drawn. If you didn’t know better you’d have to wander whether they are fight promoters or desperately anemic vampires.
Well, beginning with Schaefer, logic has been on the longest lunch break with this group since Judge Crater grabbed his coat and told his secretary ‘‘see you in a few decades — maybe.’’
When Golden Boy (the company) represented Shane Mosley, an ‘‘accidental’’ (he said) steroid user in the Balco scandal for his fight against Zab Judah, it was Mr. Schaefer who babbled:
‘‘Whatever test the Nevada Commission wants Shane will take but we are not going to do other tests (as Judah demanded). Shane is not a cheater and does not need to be treated like one.’’
That was then and this is now.
And ‘‘now’’ (with neither logic nor evidence) he explains his demand for outside blood tests by saying ‘‘I have educated myself since then. I know the difference between blood and urine tests.’’
Congratulations, Richard. Here’s a hint in case you forget. One liquid is red. One is yellow. The man’s thirst for knowledge knows no bounds. With a banker’s arrogance he says he knows more about steroids than most sports writers. He claims they don’t know the difference between blood and urine testing. Funny, most of us have been writing about them for decades while he while he was allegedly ‘‘educating’’ himself.
Meanwhile the actual Golden Boy (fairly tarnished by the beating Pacquiao gave him) exhibits the kind of logic worthy of “Alice in Wonderland.” After Pacquiao made him quit on his stool, he said that Pacquiao really didn’t hit hard, leading you to believe Oscar had been stoned into submission by a barrage of wet marshmallows. Now he suddenly reverses his field and says Pacquiao’s punches felt the same as Mosley and Vargas (both flunkers of steroid tests). As a blogger he is about as good a fighter as he was that night he froze against Pacquiao.
If the fight does not get made for March — and I think it won’t — they could still fight in the late summer or early fall.
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