After seeing the video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée Janay Palmer that TMZ Sports released on Monday morning, there were a lot of people out there who thought that Rice deserved to be banned from the NFL forever. Or at the very least, most people believed Rice deserved to be sidelined for the remainder of the 2014-15 NFL season. Not Floyd Mayweather, though.
During an interview late Tuesday, Mayweather said that he doesn't think Rice deserved anything other than the original two-game suspension that Roger Goodell gave to him in light of what took place between him and Palmer inside of an elevator at the Revel Atlantic City hotel and casino in Atlantic City, N.J. in February. His reasoning? He doesn't think that what Rice did was as bad as what goes on inside of other peoples' homes.
"I think there's a lot worse things that go on in other peoples' households, also," he told a small group of reporters outside of the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas, a few days before his big fight with Marcos Maidana. "It's just not caught on video, if that's safe to say."
Mayweather also believes that it was wrong for Goodell to go back against his original judgment.
"They had said that they had suspended him for two games," he said. "Whether they saw the tape or not, I truly believe a person should stick to their word. If you tell me you're going to do something, do what you say you're going to do."
Mayweather was seemingly trying to make the point that some other people have tried to make over the course of the last 48 hours—that if the TMZ Sports elevator video hadn't been released on Monday, Rice wouldn't have received an additional suspension from the NFL. But his comments are causing controversy because Mayweather himself has been accused of domestic violence on a handful of occasions in the past. In 2012, he spent two months in prison on charges related to domestic violence. And as recently as last week, Mayweather's former fiancée Shantel Jackson sued him and accused him of hitting her—and even pulling a gun on her once—during their relationship.
Mayweather was quick to point out that, while he's been accused of domestic violence in the past, there has never been any hard evidence proving that he's hit a female.
"Like I've said in the past, no bumps, no bruises, no nothing," he said yesterday. "With O.J. and Nicole, you seen pictures. With Chris Brown and Rihanna, you seen pictures. With [Chad] Ochocinco and Evelyn, you seen pictures. You guys have yet to see any pictures of a battered woman, a woman who says she was kicked and beaten [by Mayweather]. So I just live my life and try to stay positive, and try to become a better person each and every day."
But Mayweather probably should have avoided questions about Rice at all costs yesterday. He's certainly entitled to give his opinion on whatever topics he wants. But something tells us that the backlash against him and his opinion on Rice is going to start up any minute now—and it's not going to be pretty.
[via Associated Press]
