If Roger Mayweather's legal issues get in the way, we could see Floyd Mayweather Sr. and Jr. reunite to get ready for Juan Manuel Marquez, and perhaps more importantly, sell the fight. (via static.guim.co.uk)

View full size photo »

Dave Larzelere brings up an interesting point at TSN regarding the recent arrest of Roger Mayweather in Las Vegas, and how it could affect sales for Mayweather-Marquez:

[A] big part of the compelling package of drama with Floyd is his crazy family - his crazy, wild-eyed trainer-uncle and his even crazier, poeticizing trainer-father, and all the feuds and turmoil and trouble among the three. Taken together, they are inarguably great television, some strange fusion of Wide World of Sports and The Wire.

But you have to wonder if this recent storyline with Uncle Rog isn’t too gruesome for even HBO to want to face head on. The 24/7 series has been built on celebrating the antics of the Mayweathers, but this, choking a woman and making her spit blood, is nothing to celebrate, to put it mildly. The situation at the very least will remove Roger from the light of the cameras, and even more, may cast a pall over the coverage of the whole Mayweather training camp. Because one way or the other, this incident is going to be a major issue in that camp. If Rog is there, it will be with the possible consequences of the incident hanging over his head. If he’s not, it will be because of the incident.

What this fight very much needed was a glowing 24/7 of the kind that the Mayweathers have delivered in the past, with all of their verbose, dysfunctional and often hilarious mayhem in full bloom. Now there is a dark, violent pall cast over the entire enterprise before it’s even begun. They say "all press is good press," but this situation may exceed the limitations of that adage. And the result may be that Roger Mayweather’s latest disaster has less impact on Floyd’s performance in the ring than it does on his performance at the box office.

I said the other day that I don't think Roger not being able to work this fight would really do much to Floyd. Floyd knows what he's doing. He's been doing it a long time. And Floyd Sr. is right there to take over if it goes that route.

HBO does need Mayweather to sell this fight, perhaps more than ever before. In prior big Mayweather bouts, he's had help from Oscar de la Hoya being Oscar de la Hoya, the biggest non-heavyweight attraction in boxing history. Later he was matched with a charismatic, affable, unbeaten fighter in Ricky Hatton, a common man and great good to Floyd's evil.

Juan Manuel Marquez is not charismatic outside of the ring. He's not flashy, his English isn't so great. He's a great, great fighter, and I think he's even gone underestimated once again as an action star, considering every recent Marquez fight has been fun to watch at the least and a FotY contender at the most.

But HBO and the PPV need the Mayweathers in all their glory. If Roger's not there, father and son Floyd will have to amp it up. They'd probably be able to come up with something.