Winners by Alastair Campbell

Author:Alastair Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2015-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

‘When you get into the ring, have you ever thought you might lose? If so, how did you get through that? If not, what was the closest?’

‘Never.’ And that is that.

I remind him of something Sugar Ray Leonard said recently: ‘I always felt I would give Mayweather a hell of a fight but now I am not so sure since my brother who is my biggest fan says I wouldn’t stand a chance.’

‘What do you say to that?’ I ask.

‘Ray and I would have had a hell of a fight together but you know who would have won – TBE [The Best Ever]!’

Part of his appeal is a flamboyance and a wit often lacking in professional sportsmen, for example in one fight leaning over the ropes to correct something he heard a ringside TV commentator saying about him using a new style. ‘That’s the second time he’s done that,’ said the commentator. ‘It’s the third time,’ Mayweather shouted over to him between punches. And when Nelson Mandela, no less, said that the whole of South Africa was supporting unbeaten Philip N’dou – he had won all of his thirty-one fights by knockouts and the former South African president gave the fighter advice on how to beat Mayweather, he responded: ‘Nelson Mandela’s a great man, he’s big in America, but Mandela can’t get in there and fight for him.’ Mayweather knocked out N’dou.

Mayweather talks a lot about being ‘relevant’ and it’s something his influential PR adviser Kelly Swanson, often referred to as ‘the most powerful woman in boxing’, ruminated on when I met her in New York before she fixed the interview. ‘When you’ve done something for so long, and you’ve done it so well, how do you fill that gap? What do you do with your life, when that part of your life comes to an end which, even if you are as good as he is, you know it will?’ In the coming years, we’ll find out the answer to that question, most likely with documentary crews tracking every step. But I would lay a bet that Mayweather and his team will work it out, that he’ll stay pretty, keep ensuring ‘Money’ is the most suitable middle name, and make sure his legacy as a fighter is protected once he stops.

When you look at the pictures of Mayweather as a child, you see a good-looking young boy, but nothing to suggest he would one day be what Floyd Mayweather Jr has today become, living the remarkable life he leads, with the private jet, the beautiful homes, the buzz that surrounds him wherever he goes. But he says none of it feels abnormal to him. ‘It feels normal to drive in a white Rolls-Royce or a Bentley. It feels normal to be making the kind of money I do, and enjoying the reputation I do. I always thought this would happen.’ He puts it down to three very different parts of the body – ‘brain, chin and heart’. Most of

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