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Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn't concerned about being rusty as he enters the ring for the first time in 21 months when he faces Juan Manuel Marquez on September 19. In fact, he believes the long break may have helped him physically:
"I don't know if the two-year layoff is going to affect me, but I feel fast, I'm strong and my timing is there," Mayweather said Wednesday. "I think the break actually helped, because I haven't had a break since '87. My body gets a chance to heal, and I just grew mentally as a person ... and I feel good."
Mayweather is 32 years old and has had nagging injuries with his hands over the years, plus other small stuff. After he fought Ricky Hatton in December 2007, it seemed likely he would be taking a long break, maybe a year or so, but two years is a pretty substantial amount of time out of the sport.
Floyd is also trying to get people to pay attention to his charitable side, which he's been harping on heavily lately:
"I try to focus on positive things," Mayweather said. "(Interviewers) only want to know about negative things; they'll never ask you about the positive things. How many different families I (helped) and how many different schools I've given back to."
I'm not saying it's not great that Floyd does these things, and I'm not saying that it isn't real. But Leonard Ellerbe used to quietly talk about how no one paid attention to things like this that Floyd did, and Mayweather never mentioned it, like it was something he didn't feel he needed credit for, it was simply a good thing he did, like how Ty Cobb paid the freight for so many broke old ballplayers in his time.
Now, with legal troubles highlighting his training camp, Floyd wants everyone to focus on his charity all of a sudden. The first episode of "24/7" was almost laughable in how blatant he made his suddenly very-public charities. In one scene, we see Mayweather handing out brown paper bag meals to the homeless. Not a minute later, Mayweather is in his palatial home, bragging about how many cars he has.
It seems like he's not quite able to handle the pressures of his bad press right now, and as a result has no clue what image it is he's trying to put forward.
