Domestic abuse record doesn’t stop Mayweather’s cash flow

The New York restaurant was bursting with what they used to call members of the sporting crowd. Gamblers and hoodlums mixed freely with athletes and actors, politicians and newspaper reporters.

At one table, boxing’s infamous “Raging Bull” Jake LaMotta was impressing the swells and sycophants with his latest adventure in the ring. At the next table, Bob Martin, one of America’s great and best-connected oddsmakers, listened to Jake go on and on. Then Martin sent the prizefighter a message as only he could.

“Jake, which one of your wives took the best punch?” Martin asked.

As stunned as if he had just been rocked by Ray Robinson, the loquacious LaMotta was suddenly speechless. His propensity for beating his wives and girlfriends was no secret, but he didn’t appreciate being reminded of it.

Martin, whose colorful friends prevented LaMotta from touching a hair on his brilliant head, liked to tell that story whenever the conversation turned to sports page celebrity and the larger-than-life personas that have littered the sweet science of bruising. Boxers have a long and repulsing history of violence against women. And men, too, for that matter.

I was reminded of Martin’s tale of his TKO of the Raging Bull after watching ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” report that accurately, if breathlessly, chronicled boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s long record of domestic violence. Just days before Mayweather’s scheduled megafight against Manny Pacquiao, the sports network managed to find gambling in Casablanca with its depiction of Mayweather as a sort of LaMotta for the hip-hop generation.

Mayweather’s domestic violence record is ugly and has been reported. He has even done a little jail time in connection with it.

But what that criminal record hasn’t done was tarnish his image as a golden and sacred cash cow for Las Vegas. That was the gotcha moment of the ESPN piece, which described its theme as focusing on the, “darker side of Mayweather’s personal narrative, obscured by his flamboyant lifestyle.”

What’s so surprising isn’t that the story was produced. For a fight of this magnitude, it was low-hanging fruit. Sports page or police blotter, Mayweather is big news wherever he goes and whatever he does.

Nor was it startling that most sports writers haven’t exactly been tough on Mayweather on the subject. The gifted boxing writer Thomas Hauser was right when he told ESPN reporter John Barr that, overall, Mayweather “has gotten a free ride from the media.” But since when do most sports writers go hard on anyone at the top of their game?

What is downright hair-raising is that there are media hand-wringers who are so shocked — shocked! — that they’re calling for action from the Nevada Athletic Commission and even shouting for a boycott of the event entirely. My favorite is ESPN’s scary-smart Keith Olbermann, who recently assured viewers, “I will not give Mayweather a dime. He should have been banned for life by his sport two, or five, or 10 years ago. I will not promote, watch nor report on Mayweather’s fight. I will boycott it. I urge you to as well.”

I half expected him to say he was going to hold his breath and turn blue.

Apparently, someone forgot to inform ESPN that Nevada’s Athletic Commission was created decades ago to regulate and help bring a hint of credibility to boxing, which has sprinted from it faster than Don King ran from a barbershop. Part of the commission’s mission is related to commerce — and Mayweather-Pacquiao is a big payday for Nevada.

One of the most telling moments in the program comes when the reporter braces Mayweather and seeks a comment on the troubling subject of domestic violence. Mayweather, riding a king’s bankroll, isn’t troubled at all by it.

“When it’s all said and done, only God can judge,” he said, easily slipping the punch. “But I don’t want people to miss this fight.”

And most of them won’t.

The only thing truly shocking about ESPN’s visit to Casablanca is that, in 2015, anyone is still shocked at all.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter: @jlnevadasmith