Given Stephen A. Smith's comments surrounding Ray Rice after his widely publicized domestic violence incident with his wife, comments that got him suspended by ESPN, it's pretty incredulous that the network has been so eager to let Smith interview and speak his mind on Floyd Mayweather Jr. ahead of the boxer's highly anticipated fight with Manny Pacquiao.
Not only does Smith abstain from bringing up Mayweather's sordid history with domestic violence in this "all-access" video ESPN has been running, in which Smith tags along with Floyd on car rides, a trip to the casino and to his lavish Vegas penthouse, but he once again took to the pulpit of "First Take" to completely dismiss Mayweather's issues when it comes to rooting for the man in a fight.
In the clip above from April 8, unearthed today by Awful Announcing, we find Smith taking issue with trainer Freddie Roach's comments that Mayweather-Pacquiao is a fight pitting good against evil because of Mayweather's domestic violence issues.
"I have even thought about bringing a couple of the metro cops from Vegas in to tell Manny how many times (Mayweather) has been arrested and how bad of a guy he is, but I decided I can't go that far. He already doesn't like him; I think we are OK," Roach told USA Today.
Smith goes on a rant explaining that it isn't fair to brand fans of Mayweather the boxer as a bad guy because they are talking about him strictly through the lens fighting inside the ring. He then curiously turns to host Cari Champion to say this:
"When you take the position that you take, Cari, against—I got no problems with this, you’re a woman, you should feel that way—anybody else, based on what he’s been accused of, I get that. I have no issue whatsoever."
Champion interrupts to state that she has a problem with how Mayweather treats women in general, before Smith gets going again.
"Okay, that’s fine! I’m saying that her position is clear because she’s a woman and this is how she feels he conducts himself. I am a boxing fan. When I’m talking about Mayweather-Pacquiao, I’m thinking about two dudes strictly in the boxing ring. And that’s all I’m doing. But Freddie Roach takes this to another level. Anybody that’s rooting for Floyd Mayweather, it’s almost like ‘What kind of person are you!’ And when you feed into it by grasping what he says, it’s almost like ‘What kind of a person are you!’ I’m a guy that loves boxing.”
So here we have Smith basically dismissing Champion's negative view of Floyd because she's a woman, as if men everywhere are totally cool with Mayweather's penchant for domestic violence because they don't have a pair of breasts. It's an insulting idea, even more so because Smith is very obviously attempting to ignore a major part of Mayweather's character in order to root for him next Saturday guilt free. I guess that's what happens when you spend an entire video segment acting as the boxer's hypeman.
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[Via Awful Announcing]
