Perhaps the funniest moment of Saturday night’s “Fight of the Century” between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather came during Pacman’s walk to the ring. Jimmy Kimmel was — for reasons unbeknownst to anyone — part of Pacquiao’s crew before the fight, dressed in a hat and gold chains as a shot at Justin Bieber, who came out in Mayweather’s camp. It was a bit odd, but Kimmel explained to Grantland’s Bill Simmons on Monday’s episode of “The B.S. Report” how it all happened.
According to Kimmel, the idea popped up when Pacquiao appeared on his show in April. He thought it would get shut down by Pacquiao’s camp, but they welcomed him with open arms:
“For those who didn’t see it, when Manny was on our show, I asked if I could be his Justin Bieber, if I could be a part of his camp, and he said yes. And then after the show they said ‘yeah, yeah, we’d like to do this.’ But I really thought that by fight time somebody would have said ‘ok, no, this is ridiculous, this is a serious event, this is not gonna happen’ and then I would be kind of pushed aside as I typically am. But sure enough, I was escorted from my seat and they brought me back about 45 minutes before the fight and into a room where Manny’s family was gathered, and then the police came in and cleared everyone out…and they limited it to four people, because apparently it had to be an even number of people on each side for each camp, and I was one of the four people.”
Kimmel managed to walk out with Pacquiao and his cornermen for the fight, while sticking out like a sore thumb. Even further, his attire was something he threw together by looking up what Bieber wore to fights in the past. Despite telling his wardrobe guy that he didn’t want to look like a member of Run-DMC, Kimmel said that a lot of people made that mistake.
In further detail, Kimmel said that Pacquiao was “jumping around and fooling around” backstage, but he was still 100 percent focused on winning.
The rest of the pod is pretty interesting, as Kimmel, Simmons and Cousin Sal discuss the fight — including how 90 percent of the crowd supported Pacquiao — but the most important part of the podcast happens within the first five minutes.
(Via Grantland)
