By Julie Buehler
I’m sorry.
I’ll apologize in advance; I’m likely to burst some bubbles if you read this.
But to be clear, I’m not sorry about bursting your bubble. I’m sorry that the media and sports culture has allowed you to live in that bubble.
I’m sorry that media and sports culture has allowed the bubble to swell beyond the myth of storytelling and into a space that contorts bad people into good players, allows for heinous acts to be overlooked and perpetuates the narrative of entertainment over the reality of a person’s life.
In sports media, we’ve always walked a tightrope of myth and reality. In order to help the sports fan understand why what they watched was something they’ll remember, sports writers and broadcasters key in on the very best, the most incredible and rely on emotional climaxes to engage fans.
Thus allowing fans to use sports as “an escape” into a world of pure entertainment, free from the doldrums of daily life.
I’ve often written about this false premise, because sports are NOT an escape, but life accelerated. The rollercoaster of emotions, highs, lows, surprises and disappointment a fan experiences in one great game is tantamount to the fantastic twists one’s life might take in a year or perhaps longer.
So we crave sports for that incredible excitement and yet easily relate to the ups and downs because sports are played by real people and are analogous to real life.
But after a tumultuous season in the NFL, watching the league badly mishandle domestic violence, then seeing players suspended and banished for domestic violence, we saw a consciousness concerning a national problem at an all-time high. We began to realize that regardless of the position on the field or the perceived importance to the team, no player in the NFL was above banishment for domestic violence. We began to be vigilant in separating the fun of sports from the reality of life.
Then other sports caught on.
The NHL took swift action on Los Angeles Kings defensemen Slava Voynov, the NBA sat Jeff Taylor and most recently NASCAR suspended Kurt Busch for domestic violence.
It seemed we had turned a corner and decided no one was above the law.
And what happens in the next few months, leading up to the May 2nd Floyd Mayweather bout against Manny Pacquiao will determine if we have truly learned, or if those suspensions and actions taken by major sports leagues were a band-aid on a broken arm of our societal problem.
Floyd Mayweather: The Unrepentant Serial Domestic Abuser
The above statement isn’t a popular sentiment, but it’s real. It’s not something sports fans want to talk about, but it’s true.
Floyd Mayweather faced 63 years in prison if convicted, took a plea deal and was sentenced to 90 days and served 63 days for beating his former girlfriend, kicking and punching her in the head, dragging her by the hair while his 2 sons watched.
According to court documents obtained by USA Today, the older boy, 10 at the time, ran to get help as his father leveled blow after blow on his mother, but was blocked by one of Mayweather’s associates. The young man eventually outsmarted the henchman and called police. His mother said she may not be alive had her son not done so.
That young man, now 14, calls Mayweather a “coward.”
Do me a favor and imagine your sister, your cousin, your best friend, your mom as that woman. Imagine your gut feeling if you found out she suffered world-famous fists raining into her face while 2 young boys watched in horror.
Stomach churning yet?
Mine is. Has been since I read those reports. Does every time I see Mayweather promote himself.
But my friend, THAT is reality.
And actually, that’s only ONE of his 15 domestic violence charges that cover dozens of years, at least 7 separate occasions and 5 different women.
He’s a serial abuser. Period. And he’s the highest paid athlete on the planet. Fact.
Perhaps you’re thinking the sport of boxing, as violent as it is, lends itself to athletes with a certain proclivity to violence and any women that are in their lives are an easy target.
I don’t buy that. I know WAY too many good men in the sport of boxing to believe that. And there’s no way to absolve Mayweather of the responsibility of repeated decisions.
This isn’t about Mayweather’s sport of choice, this is about Mayweather’s choices.
After the video of Ray Rice striking his then-finance in an elevator was released, Mayweather was asked his opinion on the media firestorm.
His response: “I think there’s a lot worse things that go on in other people’s households, also,” Mayweather said. “It’s just not caught on video, if that’s safe to say. You know I wish Ray Rice nothing but the best. He’s probably going through a lot right now because football is his love…”
It’s not odd that a man who used his fists on women chose to diminish and sympathize with another man who struck a woman, what is odd is how Mayweather failed to recognize the pitfall in the question and answered so brazenly.
In an interview with Rachel Nichols of CNN, Mayweather was asked about the domestic violence incidents and Nichols, offered him a softball question as to whether he’d be willing to donate any money to domestic violence shelters that educates and seeks to prevent abuse. A seemingly innocuous question for the richest athlete on the planet.
His response: “…What I will do is make sure that millions and millions of dollars be saved for my children because that’s who I love and that’s who I care about.”
A.K.A. Nope.
His denial of responsibility, citing a lack of pictorial or video evidence of his abuse is profound and widespread and his unrepentant attitude about domestic violence, other’s who commit it and his own past is disdainful.
The payday for the man is at least $120 million dollars come May 2nd and I realize he’s not the only one getting paid.
Thousands of people stand to make millions off this one fight. As fight promoter Bob Arum said, it’s going to have Super Bowl type interest.
So what’s a sports fan supposed to do? Watch a man who plants as many right hooks into the women in his life as he does professionally trained fighters, or boycott this man and shun him from the public eye until he chooses to change his ways?
If you think people deserve to live free of domestic violence, I recommend you boycott the fight and do so vocally. Post your outrage on Facebook and Twitter and perhaps consider using the funds you’d spend on the fight or a fight party to donate to your local domestic violence shelter.
There’s no need to simply accept Mayweather in the sports world when he’s not willing to abide by common decency in the real world. I don’t care how much money he makes, how good he is at boxing or how many people want to watch this fight.
Doing the right thing is always more important that some boxing match that 4 years overdue. And making sure we continue our vigilance to end domestic violence is far more important than a single day sporting event.
Julie Buehler hosts the Coachella Valley’s most popular sports talk radio show, “Buehler’s Day Off” every day from 1-4 on 1010 KXPS, the valley’s all sports station. She can also be seen every morning between 6-7am on KMIR sharing the coolest stories in sports. She’s an avid gym rat, slightly sarcastic and more likely to recite Steve Young’s career passing stats than American Idol winners. Tune in M-F 1-4 pst at www.team1010.com or watch “Buehler’s Day Off” on Ustream and KMIR.com for her sports reports.
