Last night, I witnessed an ugly spectacle of self-promotion, arrogance, narcissism and greed at what was billed “The Fight of the Century,” and it wasn’t in the ring. ESPN’s Keith Olbermann and Michelle Beadle and CNN’s Rachel Nichols all jumped on the Mayweather story of domestic violence. Olbermann’s self-promotion included a public outcry urging people to boycott the fight. Yet one year earlier, Olbermann was all jokes and smiles as he interviewed Pacquiao about the possibility of him fighting the serial batterer. Watch how Olbermann takes Mayweather to task and makes use of his questioning of Pacquiao to denounce Mayweather’s history of domestic violence.
Not a word. Olbermann didn’t address Mayweather’s history of domestic violence with Pacquiao at that time. He wouldn’t dare suggest a fight between the two men was irresponsible. Olbermann didn’t spew his disgust until the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight was on and he was able to ensure self-promotion seemingly taking a stand against domestic violence and saying nothing about the laws and sentencing that allowed Mayweather to continue.
ESPN’s Michelle Beadle was denied credentials last night. She was quick to point out it was Mayweather.
She didn’t address the fact that HBO clearly had a part in it as well, later tweeting:
Where is the disgust for HBO? If they had the power to re-approve, then they allowed it to happen. But let’s stay away from the fact that Beadlewas even going in the first place given her stand against Mayweather. For the record, I like Beadle. I like her humor and her poise. This story, however, was not about her. It was, I thought, about domestic violence. Nothing in her tweets even addressed on the millions of women who are abused or murdered by their intimate partners each year. Then this happened:
What? It was only last October that WWE’s Stephanie McMahon instituted a “no tolerance” policy. Where was Beadle when WWE wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and child? Benoit’s “toxicology report showed more than 10 times the normal level of testosterone in his system. WWE’s Stone Cold Steve Austin was not only arrested, he’s talking about it. Let’s see if Beadle ever shows up at another WWE match.
Lastly, CNN’s Rachel Nichols tweeted all night about the villain in order to build traffic to her stories:
To be clear, Nichols was never credentialed for the fight:
I thought the story was about domestic violence, but it’s about Nichols and Nichols and she used the domestic violence story to self-promote. Where is any other story about domestic violence? Imagine what she could have done if she had focused on the issue and not Mayweather. By the way, Time Warner owns HBO and CNN. Mayweather earned both networks a nice payday.
So here we are. The hype is gone. The stories of domestic violence barely got airplay other than to demonize Mayweather and promote the villain in the fight. A large number of women had never even heard of Mayweather or Pacquiao until the domestic violence issue got pushed out and still, it was never about domestic violence. It was always about Mayweather. Will the conversation continue? Did it even start?
