15 Things you don’t know about Floyd Mayweather, Jr

1. Real name Floyd Joy Sinclair

2.  Mayweather was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on February 24, 1977, into a family of boxers.

3.  His father, Floyd Mayweather Sr, was a former welterweight contender who fought Hall of Famer Sugar Ray Leonard.

4.  His uncles (Jeff Mayweather and Roger Mayweather) were professional boxers, with Roger – Floyd’s current trainer – winning two world championships. Mayweather was born with his mother’s last name, but his last name would change to Mayweather shortly thereafter.

5.  It was not uncommon for young Mayweather to come home from school and find used heroin needles in his front yard. His mother was also addicted to drugs, and he had an aunt who died from AIDS because of her drug use.

6.  Mayweather had an amateur record of 84–6 and won national Golden Gloves championships in 1993 (at 106 lb), 1994 (at 114 lb) and 1996 (at 125 lb). He was nicknamed “Pretty Boy” by his amateur teammates because he had relatively few scars, a result of the defensive techniques that his father and uncle (Roger Mayweather) had taught him.

7.  At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Mayweather won a bronze medal by reaching the semi-finals of the featherweight (57-kg) division.

8.  In the quarterfinals, the 19-year-old Mayweather narrowly defeated 22-year-old Lorenzo Aragon of Cuba in an all-action bout to win 12–11, becoming the first U.S boxer to defeat a Cuban in 20 years.

9.  The last time this occurred was the 1976 Summer Olympics, when the U.S Olympic boxing team captured five gold medals; among the recipients was Sugar Ray Leonard.

10.  Mayweather fought his first professional bout on October 11, 1996 against fellow newcomer Roberto Apodaca, who was knocked out in round two. Mayweather’s trainer at the time was his uncle, Roger Mayweather; his father was still imprisoned after his conviction for illegal drug trafficking in 1993.

11.  In 1998, within two years of entering professional boxing, Mayweather decisively won his first world title (the WBC super featherweight (130 lb) championship) with an eighth-round technical knockout of The Ring world #1-ranked super featherweight Genaro Hernández after his opponent’s cornerman stopped the fight. It was Hernández’ first defeat in that weight class.

12.  In 1996 Mayweather became the first U.S. Olympian to win a world title.

13.  By the end of 1998 Mayweather was ranked by the The Ring as the #8-ranked pound-for-pound best boxer in the world, and became one of the youngest recipients of The Ring’s Fighter of the Year award (21, the same age Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali were when winning their first awards).

14.  On June 1, 2012, Mayweather reported to the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas to serve his 87-day jail term for domestic abuse. After serving two months, he was released from prison August 3.

15.  Mayweather resides in a 22,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, seven-bath custom-built mansion inside Southern Highlands Golf Club in Las Vegas, Nevada.