Floyd Mayweather's free pass over rant about Manny Pacquiao a disturbing trend in sports -- MLive

By Bill Simonson, MLive.com

I see this mindless free pass coming to Floyd Mayweather.

Why some athletes in sports and life get to live by a different set of public decency rules defines hypocrisy today in America. The double standard is what keeps these moronic tirades alive.

Mayweather can post an emotionally charged, hate-filled, video tirade on the Internet about Manny Pacqiuao’s heritage, sexuality and body size, only to quickly backpedal the next day because he knew he had crossed the line.

It’s sad Mayweather will not be treated like you and me if we did something like this. If I posted a video like he did, I would be out of a job and borderline banished from society.

This free-pass world some people live in because they are famous and have money kills a sport and an athlete's credibility. Why are the big names in sports allowed to live by different rules when it comes to public comments?

Shaquille O’Neal making fun of Asians, or Gary Sheffield and Torii Hunter slamming Latin American baseball players publicly, or this Mayweather story can happen -- and then be an afterthought with an apology? They should be treated like every other sports figure we have seen put their foot in their mouth.

For some unexplained reason, they are protected from the wrath of the media and fans by their status, name and bank account total. Sorry shouldn’t be enough for Mayweather to get out of this and move on.

View the video online and ask yourself what if that was you making those comments and how it would affect your life.

What puzzles me is we continue to fund and support people such as Mayweather and let them say and do whatever they want with no recourse.

Why some athletes, entertainers and top-level people have a free pass to make racially insensitive comments while hard-working men and women are held to a different rulebook is a mystery to me. The unfair playing fields for how we handle these stories, publicly and privately, is showcased by the lack of heat on Mayweather for posting that video full of hate.

This must stop.

Mayweather’s video is one of the worst rants we have seen in sports. He will walk free on fallout from the video only because boxing has no sanctioning body with power to do anything and because of who he is.

What Mayweather really did was show us who this so-called man really is. He lately has tried to play the nice guy to mainstream his career and hope, one day, he could be the people’s champion.

This video sets him back light years and puts him back as one of the most-despised people in sports. We buy his pay-per-view fights because we hope he loses and pray he shuts up.

He never has been close to truly being liked by masses. The fact he has endorsed so few products in this country, despite his his undefeated boxing record, is enough proof his only value is how much money he brings in on fight day.

Mayweather is who he is and never will change. What never will go away is that video of him letting us inside the brain with pure venom in his blood.

All who cross the line should be judged the same way in the court of public opinion and in their respective sports, regardless of who they are.

Source: blog.mlive.com