Here’s a good one–Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is accusing HBO of ‘bias’ against black fighters which must come as news to Lennox Lewis, Roy Jones, Jr. and numerous other black fighters who’ve fought on the network:

Recently retired boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. accused HBO’s announcers of bias against him and other black fighters.

Mayweather, a 31-year-old former Olympic bronze medalist from Grand Rapids, told The Grand Rapids Press in an interview Friday that the network “is great,” but criticized its boxing announcers.

“They talk about Kelly Pavlik, a white fighter, like he’s the second coming. Or they go crazy over Manny Pacquiao. But I’m a black fighter,” Mayweather said. “Is it racial? Absolutely. They praise white fighters, they praise Hispanic fighters, whatever. But black fighters, they never praise.

“I’ve noticed it for a long time but I couldn’t say anything because I had to do business with them. I’ll still do business with them, but I’m done holding my tongue.”

The SAVSCI staff has watched more boxing on HBO than we care to remember and we consider the network’s announce team to be the ‘gold standard’ of any fight sport. Do they give certain fighters preferential treatment? Absolutely. Is it based on color? Yep–the color green, as in which fighters will make HBO the most money. That’s why Pavlik and Pacquaio get lavishly praised–because they’re among HBO’s most marketable commodities at the moment. When Mayweather was coming up they did exactly the same thing with him, just like they did with Roy Jones, Jr. If Mayweather needs evidence of HBO’s “bias” toward fighters that make them money he should just rewind the tape of his fight against Oscar De La Hoya. While Mayweather clearly won that fight on the scorecards there were plenty of casual fans who thought that it was a much closer fight than did seasoned observers. Were Mayweather’s claims of “bias” correct the HBO commentary would have helped underscore that belief–and particularly against Latino matinee idol De La Hoya. But there was none of that–just a re-emphasis over and over about the masterful performance that the best pound for pound fighter in the world was putting on.

Mayweather, to his credit, quickly learned that if he can’t get people to buy his fights because they love him that he’d be well served to get them to hit the ‘Buy” button on their remote because they hate him. He has a better innate understanding of what pro wrestlers call ‘heel pyschology’–the ability to make fans buy tickets because they want to see you get beat to a pulp–than the majority of working pro wrestlers. This was played up by HBO’s promotion for Mayweather’s fights against De La Hoya and later Ricky Hatton–which helped generate huge PPV buys which allowed the ‘biased’ network to deposit 50 or so million bucks in Mayweather’s bank account.

Mayweather’s not the least bit stupid and understands the fight game as well as anyone–clearly he knows better. Serious boxing people are colorblind–they see the talent, heart and toughness of fighters instead of skin color. There’s a good chance that Mayweather is ‘working’ here, trying to portray himself a certain way to help advance his next project. Regardless, his accusations of HBO having a racial bias is an insult to the network’s talented and highly professional broadcasters–1/3 of which at any given moment are usually black (Manny Steward, Roy Jones, Lennox Lewis and in the past George Foreman).

Mayweather Jr. accuses HBO announcers of bias @ Newsday.com