Floyd Mayweather is Using His Biggest Moment to Be Small

Every decision Floyd Mayweather makes seems to be calculated. Calculated in a “what can I do to make people hate me more” way.

It’s as if he studies the public relations strategy of Russell Wilson and does the exact opposite. In the court of public opinion he’s an abject failure. In the financial arena, he’s triumphant.

His ugly history of domestic abuse is both well-documented and loathed. Calls to boycott tonight’s fight as a punitive measure to keep his wallet lighter have been ubiquitous.

And yet here we are, a few hours from his long-awaited matchup with Manny Pacquaio, with more ugly behavior toward women cropping up, and Mayweather is still the highest-paid athlete in the world. He’s the epicenter of what’s being — fairly or not — being called the biggest sporting day of the year.

He clearly has little regard for what others think or adhering to accepted definitions of decency. All of this doesn’t make it easy to root against him. It makes it impossible to root for him.

He’s almost a cartoonish villain, a real-life embodiment of a screenwriter going too far when crafting a bad guy.

This afternoon’s circus concerning the credentials of Michelle Beadle and Rachel Nichols, two journalists who dared to hold Mayweather accountable for his actions, should come as no surprise. Mayweather does not respond kindly to those who try to pop the amniotic sac of ego that sustains him.

Those in unenviable position to defend Mayweather’s camp aren’t getting paid enough. There’s not enough lipstick in the world to make this piggish behavior any less unsettling.

Mayweather is dreaming of a narrative where he defeats Pacquiao and secures a place as one of the greatest to ever step in the ring. But win or lose tonight, he’ll never be able to escape another legacy he’s cemented.

As an unrepentant and stubborn cad who refused to look inward and change his behavior, even in the face of public criticism and reason.

It’s fitting he’d do it is way — the wrong way — in his biggest moment.