Mayweather Media Conference Call Transcript
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FLOYD "MONEY" MAYWEATHER MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL TRANSCRIPT Kelly Swanson Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We are promoting "THE MOMENT" and we've had so many great moments promoting this event. I find this call to be one of our special moments because we have none other than the pound-for-pound king, Floyd "Money" Mayweather available to talk to you today. He, of course, is a 10-time five-division world champ and the current WBC Welterweight World Champion. You will be receiving your fight week schedule very shortly and it will give you all the details for what's to come next week as we prepare for the fight week of the May 3 bout. So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Leonard Ellerbe, Chief Executive Officer of Mayweather Promotions, to make the introductions. Leonard Ellerbe I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on the call today. We're just 10 days away from "THE MOMENT." Will this be the moment that Maidana shocks the world and becomes victorious? You just have to see. Will this be the moment that, for the first time, Maidana gets stopped? You have to just wait and see. Obviously, this fight will be brought to us by none other than SHOWTIME PPV® and without further ado, I'd like to introduce the man who controls and runs everything at SHOWTIME, none other than the Executive Vice President and General Manager of SHOWTIME Sports, Stephen Espinoza. Stephen Espinoza Just a couple of programming notes before I turn it back over to Leonard and to Floyd. We will be premiering Episode 2 of All Access this weekend, 6:00 p.m. Pacific, 9:00 Eastern immediately preceding our three-fight, heavy hitters card. If you missed Episode 1, it's available just about everywhere from the SHOWTIME website to On-Demand, SHOWTIME Anytime and YouTube and virtually everywhere else. We were also well into our pre-fight programming on SHOWTIME OnDemand and SHOWTIME Anytime as well as many other places. We are already featuring classic Mayweather fights, classic Maidana fights and many of the undercard fighters from J'Leon Love to Adrien Broner to Amir Khan, but I know you are all anxious to hear from the champ, so I'll turn it back over to you, Leonard, and I will see you all next week. L. Ellerbe So without further ado, TBE, the man himself. Floyd Mayweather First, I want to thank Stephen Espinoza, I want to thank SHOWTIME, I want to thank CBS, I want to thank Leonard Ellerbe, I want to thank Al Haymon, I want to thank Richard Schaefer, I want to thank Kelly Swanson, I want to thank everybody, all the networks and all the people that are covering this fight and all the people that have covered my fights throughout the years. I want to thank you guys and I just want to say I really appreciate you and everybody that's a part of the event and that helped get these events started, "THE MOMENT". I couldn't choose a better team, because we work as one. I know Maidana is going to come and bring his best, so I know that I cannot overlook him, so I'm in training every day and dedicating myself. Q What were you able to do, in terms of the promotion, that you all were able to put together, such an amazing card? L. Ellerbe Yes, the card from top to bottom is stacked. We felt as though the fans; it's all about giving the fans the value for their money, and that's what Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions is about when we're putting on these major events. Q Can you just talk about your relationship with Leonard and why that has been so successful and so stable over the years? F. Mayweather This is something a lot of people don't know. Let me enlighten people on the story with Leonard Ellerbe. Now, Leonard Ellerbe had not a good job but a great-paying job in D.C. He's from D.C. Had a good-paying job, and people don't know how Leonard got with me. Leonard came out here. Leonard used to go on trips, used to pay his own way to go on trips with us and just help out, and he used to leave his job. He'd leave his job and fly on his own money because he had, I think, it was a six-figure paying job. He also was a fitness trainer. He had another job, so he was making very good money. He left all that, paid his own way to come support me, and one particular time he was doing some charity work for me. He was doing everything to make sure I got up to do my runs, he was doing security work for me and everything, and all he was making, it wasn't big money because I was making good money but I wasn't paying him what I feel like I should have been paying him. But you know, times have changed. He stuck with me through thick and thin. We've been through a lot together. He stuck with me through everything. I'm happy to say he's a multimillionaire now, so I feel like it was worth it, the wait was worth it, and we go through a lot. A lot of times people don't see we go through a lot. Because we strive for the best. We strive for the best, but at the end of the day it's about communication and one thing that we can do, I respect him as a man, he respects me as a man and we can communicate, and I will always love Leonard Ellerbe. He's doing a tremendous job. S. Espinoza If I could make one addition back to your first question, there are some things that Floyd and Leonard are actually I think a little too modest about, so I'll go ahead and voice this for them. As you've heard from Richard and Leonard in the past, this is the most expensive undercard in the history of pay-per-view undercards. To be more specific that is an investment by Floyd and by Mayweather Promotions. So all credit goes to him for investing not just in this event but in investing in the growth of the sport because from the network perspective, it is only through events of this magnitude that we really grow to the casual fans. When we talk about appeal to the casual fans, Floyd is head and shoulders above everyone else. This is not a card that we needed to support this event. This was something that Mayweather Promotions went above and beyond to do and took money out of their pocket to do so, and I think that needs to be recognized as an investment in the sport. Q When you have been devising the game plan for Marcos Maidana did you or your team feel as though it was really Devon Alexander that laid down the blueprint to defeat somebody like Maidana? F. Mayweather I think that what's different is Maidana may not be accustomed to fighting southpaws, so that could have played a major key into his fight with Devon Alexander. Also he was fighting on Alexander's turf and I think the difference between me and Alexander, he's a more straight-up boxer. I think he's a more straight-up boxer but I think when Maidana's facing me his confidence is built after he beat Adrien Broner because he feels that both of the styles are very, very similar, so it's like the same style. I think he's more confident now than he was when he faced the kid from St. Louis, Devon Alexander. I think he's more confident now, so I think he's more ready and tough. If you have more confidence it's going to make you fight harder. Q Is Maidana as good as he was against Broner? Is he as bad as he was against Alexander? Or is he really average, in between there somewhere? F. Mayweather You know, I can't really say, but one thing that I did notice, as some of you know I look at a lot of things. I don't have anything against anyone, but I noticed that when the guy, Alex Ariza, was in Amir Khan's corner and when he faced Maidana, Amir Khan looked super strong in that fight. Then you go back and look at it, I go look at Maidana's fights against certain guys, like when he fought Alexander, he was strong, he was still coming ahead because he's the kind of guy that comes straight ahead, and liked the looped shots. He wasn't as strong as he was in the Adrien Broner fight. In the Adrien Broner fight he was a lot stronger than he was in a lot of his past fights. So you know, I don't know if Alex Ariza plays a major role into that, but when I sit back and I look, I'm looking at Pacquiao versus Bradley and I notice ever since Ariza has not been with Pacquiao anymore there's been a total change in his power. So I look at things like that and I question things like that to myself, but I don't worry about anything and I'm not going to say nothing about Ariza because I think he's a pretty cool guy.