LAS VEGAS — The boxer
Floyd Mayweather Jr. travels everywhere surrounded by 1,470 pounds of bulk, the combined weight of four men so large that when they stand close to him, he disappears.
To the uninformed, these men look like bodyguards, albeit the biggest, beefiest bodyguards around. But Mayweather disdains that title. Rappers, he says, have bodyguards.
Floyd Mayweather has security.
Mayweather tells his security to “put up that Great Wall,” and they fall into their assigned formation, with Alfonso Redic and Adam Plant in front and Pat Walsh and Donald Monks in back. They wear T-shirts reading TMT (for The Money Team) and ranging in size from 3XL to 7XL. Their nicknames: Big Church, Big A, Big Pat and Jethro.
They stand between Mayweather and the mayhem that accompanies him, between Mayweather and those who wish to harm or rob or follow or harass. They remain on call 24 hours a day and are paid in bonuses doled out at Mayweather’s whim. They escort him to the mall and to the gym and on vacation, and on Saturday night they will again lead him into the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, for his bout against Saúl Álvarez, who is known as Canelo.
Inside arenas, it is opponents of the undefeated Mayweather who need protection. His hands are basically weapons, his body trained both to inflict pain and to avoid it. He would seem an unlikely candidate to require his own sort of Secret Service.
But Mayweather’s security detail serves two main purposes, both of which speak to his personality. The team serves the practical side of Mayweather, a defendant in numerous lawsuits who will often carry around more than $1 million in cash and is guaranteed at least $41.5 million for the Álvarez fight. And it bolsters the image of the man who goes by Money, who boasts of the biggest everything: his “big boy mansion,” his collection of more than 25 cars, his pay-per-view numbers, his gold chains and diamond earrings and watches the size of bagels.
“It’s just normal that he has the biggest bodyguards as well,” said Richard Schaefer, the chief executive of Golden Boy Promotions, a Mayweather business partner. “It wouldn’t fit otherwise.”
After one training session last month, Mayweather sneaked out the back door of his locker room. A crush of fans descended. Security instructed the crowd to move back, away from the white Lamborghini Aventador with black rims that was parked diagonally and idling.
Mayweather climbed inside, along with a cameraman from Showtime, and as the bass thumped and the boxer revved the engine, the security’s myriad duties were whittled to one: making sure the Lamborghini did not run over someone’s foot.
The next day, Mayweather canceled his scheduled workout session. His security team met for lunch at the Tap House, where patrons sipped beers at 11 a.m., next to neon signs, under a haze of smoke. The four men ordered chicken wings. They checked their phones continually, in case the boss called. The celery that accompanied the wings, naturally, was left untouched.
They detailed their job description. WANTED: oversize men with incredible patience, available 24-7-365, who protect at all times and speak only when spoken to; perks include premium seats at sporting events, first-class airfare, diamond watches given at random and fat wads of cash dispensed regularly.
Two nights earlier, Mayweather had summoned his security team at 6 a.m. He wanted a foot massage. The men drank coffee and Red Bull and wiped sleep from their eyes as they left their families and went to work.
Mayweather’s vampiresque schedule — his days start in the afternoon and end around sunrise — can be a challenge, but they all knew the job description. They knew they would miss birthdays and anniversaries and work through his vacations.
They believe Mayweather will take care of them. He always has. Redic and Plant once worked for the rapper Snoop Dogg. Mayweather pays better, they said, and his entourage comes with fewer headaches. They accompanied him for his WrestleMania appearance in 2008. They even sign an occasional autograph.
The first rule of Mayweather security: job first. They see all the anglers who show up at the gym, who want to pitch business plans or give away T-shirts or meet one of the richest athletes in the world. Cronies, they call those people, and they can spot them from far away. Members of the security team know they are not supposed to be friends with Mayweather. Job first.
The second rule of Mayweather security: be nice. Earlier bodyguards employed by Mayweather were named in lawsuits, more than a half-dozen, often with the boxer named as well. If security can play the role of kind-but-firm bad guy, the fighter does not have to. He can sign autographs when he feels like it. He can slide through crowds. Should any of them slip, Mayweather will scold them back into position with two words: “Tighten up.”
The third rule of Mayweather security, courtesy of Plant: “Protect the quarterback at all times. Make sure he ain’t touched.”
The fourth rule of Mayweather security is that Mayweather rarely discusses Mayweather security. The topic seemed to make him uncomfortable last month. He said his large companions were there to “secure the premises” and “alleviate all problems.” He said President Obama did not discuss the Secret Service. He was serious.
Then he said, “I just want to talk about” — he pointed both thumbs at his chest — “me.”
Many believe his reluctance to talk about security members, and his decision to employ them in the first place, stem from a 2003 incident in which Mayweather split from a business associate. According to one witness and several others who said they spoke to Mayweather in the immediate aftermath, some of his associates were beaten at the Top Rank Boxing gym in Las Vegas. Mayweather and his camp have never confirmed this account, but Bob Arum, the founder of Top Rank and no fan of Mayweather’s, likes to say it took weeks to get the blood stains out of the carpet.
That is where the bodyguards come in, especially during fight week. They protect Mayweather and his investment in the fight; expenses for a bout like Saturday’s run at least $10 million. Before his last match, against Robert Guerrero, Mayweather kept his father away from Guerrero’s father at the news conference, the bodyguards between them.
Donald Monks watching Mayweather train. Credit Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
“I’d much rather he hire them than feel the need to carry a handgun,” said Stephen Espinoza, the general manager of Showtime Sports.
Boxers have employed security for decades. These bodyguards are often former police officers or former federal agents, or they specialize in protection. Arum promoted Muhammad Ali, who hired security from his entourage. Shane Mosley used police officers for fights.
It seems counterintuitive that boxers, of all athletes, need security, since they are some of the toughest sportsmen on the planet. But some fans want to test their manhood, especially a flashy boxer like Mayweather, undefeated in the ring but, at 5-foot-8 and roughly 150 pounds, not a large man in real life.
No fighters employ security members as numerous or as large as Mayweather does. Redic is 7 feet 1 inch and weighs 430 pounds. Plant is 6-7 and 380 pounds; Walsh is 6-5 and 400 pounds; Monks, pint-size in comparison, is 6-3 and 260 pounds. They are basically 80 percent of an N.F.L. offensive line.
Mayweather likes something in particular about each of them. Redic is the most intimidating. He played professional basketball overseas. He met Mayweather through a friend at a nightclub and apparently passed the eye test. “You don’t work for Snoop no more,” Mayweather told him. “You work for me now.”
Plant played football, first at Tuskegee University, then in training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs, then in the Canadian Football League. Snoop Dogg added Plant to his semipro team, and he played right tackle, and they never lost. Snoop nicknamed him Pancake. Mayweather paid for what it cost Plant to move his family into a house.
“I used to laugh at security guards,” Plant said. “I called them fake cops.”
Walsh wrestled in high school in Arizona, then played football at a community college. He is licensed to carry a firearm — as is Plant — and knows the gun laws in different states. Walsh lives the closest to Mayweather, a four-minute drive away. He once sat in front of the actress Gabrielle Union at a Miami Heat game, courtesy of the man they call Champ.
Monks, a retired heavyweight, knows the history of boxing, same as his boss. He met Mayweather as a bartender, when the boxer left $1,000 tips, even though the strongest thing he drank was juice.
“Basically, we’re as nice as we are mean,” Walsh said. “We’re really, really nice. I swear. But if we want to, we can be mean. We can go there. But only if we have to.”
Sometimes, Mayweather laments the constant chaos in his life. He wonders what it would be like to walk alone, unbothered. He knows, of course, that it would be impossible, unsafe.
So he calls his security team, sometimes at 2 a.m., sometimes at 4 a.m., sometimes at 8 a.m., and he summons Big Church, Big A, Big Pat and Jethro to the airport, where private planes await. These planes are large enough to hold Mayweather’s most important cargo: 1,470 pounds of bulk.
