Ring perfect Floyd still pursuing that quality in his personal life

It’s impossible to improve upon perfect, but when the subject is Floyd Mayweather Jr., the normal rules don’t apply.

An outsider might say the 36-year-old boxer lives a perfect life. He’s among the greatest ever to have competed in his sport.
He owns a fleet of luxury cars, a massive and stylish home in a tony, golf-course community, wears hand-tailored custom suits and accentuates his wardrobe with more diamonds than Elizabeth Taylor could dream of having.

He employs a gaggle of assistants to take care of his every need, real or imagined. If he wants to go to the movies, he rents out the entire theatre. He stays in the finest hotels and flies on a sleek private jet. Women throw themselves at him; men dream of being him.
It’s some people’s idea of a perfect life. In life, as in sport, however, perfection is very elusive.

And so, even with a 43-0 record, even with a spot among boxing’s all-time greats long ago assured, even with every material thing he might want at his fingertips, Mayweather himself is the first to concede his life is not perfect.

“Everybody goes through ups and downs,” Mayweather said in one of his final public appearances before his welterweight title fight today at the MGM Grand Garden against Robert Guerrero. “Nobody has a perfect life. ... I just have to take the good with the good and the bad with the bad.” There’s been far more good than bad in his 36 years, though 2012 was a nightmare in many ways despite one of the most successful promotions and significant victories of his career.

Less than a month after he defeated Miguel Cotto in a bout that sold more than 1.5 million pay-per-view units, Mayweather reported to the Clark County Detention Center to begin serving a 90-day sentence following a guilty plea to misdemeanor domestic violence charges.

He spent 23 hours a day in his cell on weekdays and was confined around the clock on weekends. It was through the help of visits from friends and his lawyer, and sessions with a savvy counsellor that helped him survive the ordeal.

Respecting freedom
Mayweather says the experience taught him never to take his freedom for granted. “Your freedom is your most precious gift,” he said. “There’s nothing like being free. Without freedom, you don’t have anything.”

He was jailed because of a 2010 incident with Josie Harris, the mother of three of his four children, in a home he bought for her to live in.
In Harris’ version, Mayweather became enraged when he saw text messages from NBA player C.J. Watson and got physically abusive.

Harris alleges she suffered a concussion and other injuries as a result of the beating.

Mayweather has never spoken of the details, but has denied striking Harris, and said he pled guilty to the misdemeanor to spare his son, Koraun, from having to testify.

Mayweather and Harris have had a long, tortured history together, and authorities have been involved in disputes between them frequently. Mayweather went to trial on felony domestic violence charges in 2005 after an incident between them.

Harris recanted at the preliminary hearing and Mayweather was acquitted at trial. She testified at that trial that Mayweather “was a teddy bear inside.” She also told jurors, “No matter what I did, he would never put his hands on me.”
Those two months he served in the Clark County Detention Center have made a noticeable change in him, at least in his public appearances. Several of his closest acquaintances and associates say he’s markedly different now.

“Without a doubt, it had a huge impact upon him,” said former light heavyweight champion Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, a noted boxing trainer and friend of Mayweather’s father who often works at the Mayweather Boxing Club. “It opened his eyes to a whole lot of things about life and in his life that he never really gave much thought to before.
“I’ll bet you see a better performance out of him than when he fought [Diego] Corrales, because the weight is off his back and he’s made right with his family.”

He’s re-hired his father, Floyd Sr., to be his lead trainer. The two have had a volatile relationship, and Mayweather Sr. has not been his son’s lead trainer since 2000. Mayweather Sr.’s brother, Roger Mayweather, has trained the champion for the bulk of his professional career.

Notable disputes
In 2000, Mayweather Jr. booted his father out of a home and repossessed a van he’d given him. They had several notable disputes, culminating in a painful-to-watch argument on HBO’s “24/7” just prior to his 2012 fight with Cotto.