by Charles Jay
In the final week of the lead-up to his fight against Miguel Cotto, scheduled for Saturday night at the MGM Grand, live on HBO Pay-per-View, there is the announcement none of us have been waiting for – that Pretty Boy (oops, don’t call him that) is now becoming a magazine auteur.
Could Manny Pacquiao be far behind?
The magazine is entitled simply “Mayweather,” and what it’s billed as is a “limited edition print magazine,” according to the press release. That could mean “we’re not printing to many copies because we’re not expecting to sell a lot.” Only 2500, in fact, are being printed.
They won’t be skimping on the printing bills with this one; “Mayweather” will be an oversized edition, with gold-leaf lettering and high-grade glossy paper, and is going to be produced in conjunction with MYMAG, a platform that provides for interactivity that goes beyond the print magazine itself. It is also the only platform through which the magazine itself will be sold. The price is $25, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling.
Through the MYMAG publication, the celebrities that are their subjects generally reveal something to their most ardent fans that has heretofore not been known, whether it is authorship of content, or sharing artifacts from their lives.
For example, on the MYMAG website they explain how Deepak Chopra, the well-known alternative medicine advocate who also has his own signature magazine, published photos that has never been seen before, and also unveiled the lyrics to a song he had co-written with Michael Jackson, which had never been made public before.
Others who have ventures with MYMAG include Sean Combs, movie director Brett Ratner, model/actress Olivia Munn, record producer Steve Aoki and character actor Danny Trejo.
By the way, you can get a copy of both Combs’ AND Ratner’s magazines for the price you’ll pay for one of Floyd’s.
And you wonder why they call him “Money.”
So what will Mayweather be revealing in issues to come? Pictures of himself in prison garb? We kid, we kid.
Actually, Mayweather is not a bad subject for the magazine’s platform, because what they want to focus on is his “luxurious lifestyle,” which he not only does not nothing to hide but everything to exploit, such as his extravagant gambling habit. He has, incidentally, denied betting $1.8 million on the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 1 of their playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies, but then again, maybe he’s just saving the win ticket to display in the next edition of his magazine.
The publishers are conducting a contest for aspiring designers, to put together a pattern for a new pair of shoes for Floyd to wear. The winner gets $3000 and a pair of those shoes that will be signed by Mayweather himself.
The press release lists the fighter as “Floyd Jay Mayweather, Jr.” when clearly his middle name is “Joy,” so they’re not off to a rousing start.
The first issue includes a lot of pictures of Mayweather’s friends; a feature that was derived from something Vibe Magazine did about 50 Cent’s appearance in the film “The Righteous Kill,” and some articles about the history of Las Vegas.
According to the release, there is also some content from Mayweather himself. Will material for the next issue be written from jail? Hey, it worked for the Marquis de Sade, right?
