Floyd Mayweather I Dot Ever Wanna See That Guy Again

Don Hale chuckled when he recalled what Floyd Mayweather Jr. told him the boxer's family members called Hale.

"His white daddy," Unhurt said, and his relationship with the boxer remains a matter of intrigue more than than two decades afterwards it started.

Every bit Mayweather prepares to fight Manny Pacquiao on May ii, Hale discussed the 2 years he spent with Mayweather during a pivotal time of the boxer's apprentice career. He also recalled early signs of what Mayweather has get, long before the boxer compiled a 47-0 record and earned more than $400 million.

"I don't know if Floyd would want people to know this, but setting out, he wanted to be the bad guy," Hale told USA TODAY Sports. "I call up when he was an amateur talking virtually he could exist a Sugar Ray Leonard. He said, 'I don't want to be a Sugar Ray Leonard, I want to exist the bad guy. People pay to see the bad guy.'

"He wasn't that concerned what people thought considering he thought that they would pay (to spotter his fights)."

Unhurt, who owns a multimillion-dollar hormone-replacement company, knows about being viewed every bit the bad guy, besides. After he became Mayweather's unofficial guardian in the mid-1990s, Hale said, some people said he did information technology just so he could manage the promising fighter when Mayweather turned pro. Only now Tennessee's attorney full general has cast Hale every bit a bad guy, also.

Hale and his brother have been embroiled in litigation since 2012, when the land sued the Hales' company for making unsubstantiated health claims and failing to advise patients of potential side furnishings.

While denying those charges, Hale said he has never discussed hormone therapy with Mayweather, never treated any professional athletes and insists that the boxer never would use performance-enhancing drugs.

"When it comes to operation-enhancing drugs, he'south and then confronting that, he wouldn't fifty-fifty think about it," Hale said. "I don't think Floyd would ever take testosterone if yous offered it to him."

But Hale said Mayweather needed help of another sort when they first met in 1994.

How it all began

Hale said he was in Las Vegas in the early on 1990s, when his blood brother was grooming boxer Frankie Randall, and he encountered Mayweather's uncle, Roger Mayweather, and then boxing and living there. Hale said he explained he was from Yard Rapids -- the Mayweather family'due south hometown -- and he and Roger started talking about Floyd, then 16 and growing unfocused because his male parent, Floyd Sr., was in prison for drug trafficking.

"Roger said he couldn't handle Floyd, and then he sent him back home (to Grand Rapids). Roger told me, 'He'south running the streets and needs somebody to sentry after him. Would yous exist interested?' I told him to take Floyd give me a call."

Soon later, Mayweather, who'd been living with his grandmother, met Hale met in Grand Rapids. He moved in with Hale'southward family -- wife and three children -- a few days later, co-ordinate to Hale.

"His dad had just gone away and he missed his dad pushing him to get in the gym," Unhurt said. "From in that location, I started taking him to the gym. I wasn't there every 24-hour interval, because I had a business to run, but I always institute a way to getting him there."

Every bit a teenager, Mayweather already had shown traits outside the ring that ascertain him today. Such as the unusual sleeping patterns. Hale said the boxer wanted to stay up all dark and snooze all mean solar day.

"Ane time, I got him a job," Unhurt said. "Information technology was summertime and I said, 'OK, Floyd, you've gotta become a chore.' At that place was a guy that had a banquet center, so he hired Floyd, and he'd but been at that place a 24-hour interval or two and I get a call about 10 o'clock one morning.

"The guy says, 'Don, nosotros left Floyd to motion these tables and nosotros come up back, the tables aren't moved and he'southward comatose and we can't wake up him."

Hale headed to the banquet center, where they'd finally roused Mayweather.

"He said, 'Don, I don't want to do annihilation merely box. I'yard going to make my living boxing.'" Unhurt said. "So I never tried to get him some other chore after that."

Can't handle losing

In the ring, Mayweather was developing into one of the state's best amateurs fighters. But Hale said he was with Mayweather during two of his defeats.

"When people ask me nearly Floyd and where he is, it's because he can't stand up to lose, he tin't handle it," Hale said, recalling how he consoled the boxer subsequently those two defeats. "We get back to the dressing room, Floyd puts his caput on my shoulder, and he but cries like a baby."

Hale said he offered more than than comfort. He as well got Mayweather a car and gave him allowance.

"It never was enough. He always wanted more," Hale said. "He was the best dressed apprentice boxer in the world, I guess, because he wanted all the best wearing apparel. He wanted name-make stuff. He was the starting time to go the (Air) Jordans and that sort of thing."

But somewhen, Unhurt was in position to potentially recoup his money -- and make considerably more. He and the boxer had signed a alphabetic character of intent for Hale to represent Mayweather when he turned pro.

Only before the Olympic trials in 1996, the ii had a falling out when Mayweather informed Unhurt that he intended to find another manager and, afterwards winning a statuary medal at the Olympics, signed with Bob Arum's Top Rank Boxing.

He said he knew he'd lost Mayweather when the boxer split town before the trials and returned with show of having been courted by another promoter.

"Floyd had a agglomeration of new clothes and a wad of cash in his pocket," Hale said. "He told me that (another promoter) gave it to him."

Top Rank lured Mayweather with a $100,000 signing bonus later the Olympics. Hale sued Mayweather earlier settling with Height Rank.

The boxer and Hale frequently crossed paths in Las Vegas, simply they rarely said anything only hello until a decade ago, when Unhurt said he got a call from Mayweather.

Repairing the relationship

It was at ii:30 a.m., following one of Mayweather'south fights, when Hale heard from the boxer.

"He said, 'I call back of what you and (Hale's married woman) Dixie did for me every twenty-four hour period and I want you to know that I oasis't forgotten near what you've done for me,'" Hale said.

Mayweather later flew Hale and his family -- wife and three children -- to Las Vegas on an all-expenses paid trip to watch him fight Oscar De La Hoya.

Though Mayweather'south publicist, Kelly Swanson, said he was unavailable to talk this calendar week near Hale because the boxer is focused on training every bit the fight draws well-nigh, Swanson said Hale and his wife "are very apparent" and Mayweather canonical of the interview.

Hale said he and the boxer at present talk and text regularly and he recalled a conversation the 2 had when Mayweather emerged from prison in 2012 after serving 3 months for domestic bombardment.

"He called me, like, a week subsequently, actually troubled by some the things going on," Hale recalled. "He didn't get specific, other than proverb, 'I've got people that desire me to leave Al Haymon (Mayweather's manager). I'm getting a lot of pressure level from people who maybe aren't as good a friends every bit I idea they were.'

"I said, 'Floyd, all I can tell you is, I don't know Al Haymon, I've never met him, but if he'due south been good to you lot, be loyal to him. I believe in loyalty. You need to be loyal to him.' He said, 'That'southward what I'm going to do.'

"Those are the sort of conversations we have."

The two talked about the possibility of his coming out to Las Vegas to sentry him fight Pacquiao, Hale said, before deciding to wait on a rendezvous in Nashville, where Hale settled afterward leaving One thousand Rapids and his two years with Mayweather.

"He's a adept kid and has fabricated something of himself, done something special," Hale said. "I'm proud of him. Floyd was a special office of my life, and to have him back in my life, that's special."

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Source: https://www.freep.com/story/sports/2015/04/23/floyd-mayweather-manny-pacquiao/26256365/

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