Mayweather: Rousey on RING cover makes boxing ‘look bad’

The lead up to UFC 193 has seen Ronda Rousey make her way onto a number of major platforms, outside of traditional MMA media. She’s done not just the late night talk shows, but daytime TV as well. She even got an appearance on Ellen, who tweeted out an advance copy of the UFC 193 promo to her 49.6 million followers. She guest hosted Sports Center for a day, and has grabbed headlines in the kinds of publications that normally wouldn’t touch MMA with a ten foot poll. Perhaps one of the most surprising of those publications is boxing’s The Ring magazine.

The publication raised a lot of eyebrows when they announced that they would feature Ronda Rousey on their cover. Rousey will be the first MMA fighter to ever hit the front page of the prominent boxing magazine, and only the second woman ever. She’s slated for the January 2016 issue. And it’s a move that’s likely to keep fans and fighters in both sports talking all the way through publication date.

The latest fighter to weigh in on the news is none other than Boxing’s biggest star, Floyd Mayweather Jr., who sounded less than impressed by the idea when speaking to FightHype.com:

“Well, you know, congratulations, but you know the sport is starting to look bad when a female fighter from a whole other sport is on the cover of a boxing book.”

And to hear Mayweather tell it, there’s no one that this move reflects more poorly on than Oscar De La Hoya:

“You gotta realize this, we all know Oscar De La Hoya owns the Ring Magazine. That shows you; he has no fighters but Canelo. Basically, it’s like he’s trying to steal her from Dana White. Richard Shaefer, he built Golden Boy from the ground up, helped them make tons and tons of money, and what did this guy do? This is real talk, how can Canelo or any fighter hold their head up high and say, ‘You know what? I’m proud for Oscar, a guy that dressed in drag and been on coke.’ I mean, the world knows this. How can you hold your head up high and say, ‘You know what? I’m proud for this person to be my promoter’.”

Harsh words from Floyd to be sure, and very likely not the last we’ll hear of the Ring magazine cover and just what it means in the everlasting debate of boxing vs. MMA.