Ronda Rousey hits Floyd Mayweather on domestic violence
This April, ahead of his massive fight with Manny Pacquiao, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. fielded a question from Yahoo! anchor Katie Couric, looked into the camera, and denied hitting his former girlfriend.
“Did I kick, stomp, and beat someone? No, that didn’t happen,’’ said Mayweather. “I look in your face and say, ‘No, that didn’t happen.’’’
The comment referenced a 2010 incident for which Mayweather served 60 days in jail. According to a statement filed with police, Mayweather appeared at the home of Josie Harris, whom he no longer lived with, upset that Harris was in a relationship with another man. Harris told police Mayweather grabbed her by the hair, pulled her down, and started punching her. Their son, Koraun Mayweather, gave a statement in which he said, in part, “I heard yelling and I came out and my dad was hiting [sic] my mom.’’
Mayweather first admitted to being a domestic abuser in 2001. A New Yorker profile earlier this year details several incidents in which the boxer was charged, but the 2010 incident is the only one for which he served jail time. That history did little to curtail his earning power. For his May 2 fight with Pacquiao, Mayweather received a check for $100 million. Additional checks easily make him the highest-paid athlete on the planet.
Enter Ronda Rousey, the mixed martial arts star who was also the subject of a recent New Yorker profile, a woman who is the most marketable female fighter of her kind. On Wednesday, Rousey won an ESPY award, given out by ESPN, for 2015’s best fighter.
On the red carpet, she couldn’t resist taking a shot at Mayweather.
“I wonder how Floyd feels being beat by a woman for once,’’ she says, drawing “ooos’’ from the interviewers.
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Rousey also referenced a 2014 interview in which Mayweather purports not to know who Rousey is. In May, Rousey tweaked Mayweather along the same lines, telling Access Hollywood, “I don’t think that me and him would ever fight, unless we ended up dating.’’
Several reporters who have been most persistent in questioning Mayweather’s personal history, including CNN’s Rachel Nichols, reported having issues getting credentials for May’s fight. The fight broke the record as the most-purchased pay-per-view event of all time.
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