J. Prince-Floyd Mayweather beef: The violent history between the boxing legend and his former manager

James Prince (AKA J. Prince), Music Executive and Founder of Rap-A-Lot Records, was Floyd Mayweather's manager back in 2003. Known to have assisted with the rise of top artists like Drake, Prince also managed top boxing athletes like Andre Ward and, of course, Floyd Mayweather.

Floyd Mayweather was on the top of the world at that time, holding the WBC and The Ring Lightweight Championships. He was coming off a recent win against Jose Luis Castillo in 2002, which turned out to be a very close contest.

Canelo is a different breed... Shows how good @FloydMayweather is. Played with him.

— ryan lamb (@ryan_lamb) December 20, 2020

Going into the fight against Nigerian-born boxer Phillip N'dou, Floyd was assured a purse of over $3 million dollars. However, with his contract with Prince ending soon, he wanted the fight to be postponed until after the contract fully expired.

would you rather fight #floydmayweather or #conormcgregor...🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/Z5qUMJOaul

— No Jumper (@nojumper) December 19, 2020

Bob Arum recalls the Floyd Mayweather/James Prince incident

Floyd Mayweather knew that if he waited for the contract to run its natural course, he wouldn't have to pay 20% of his purse to Prince in manager fees. Prince didn't take kindly to the plan when he eventually found out. What ensued is best recalled by Top Rank founder Bob Arum:

"We were at dinner one night and I got a call that there was a disturbance in my gym. Floyd apparently had asked us not to do a fight in October but to do it in December after James Prince's contract with him had run out.

The disturbance in my gym was that some people came over, with or without the knowledge of James Prince, and proceeded to break a couple of heads of people in Mayweather's camp with baseball bats. So the gym was splattered with blood.

Floyd came to my office the next day and he said, 'Prince wants his money from the fight that's coming up.' I said, 'Fine, if that's what you want. I'll write him a letter of credit.' Floyd said, 'Prince don't do no letters of credit. You better send the cash.'

So I wrote a check, and I made a contract with Prince's lawyer and he got paid the money that he said he was entitled to as Floyd's manager."

Reports confirmed Bob Arum's version of events. Top Rank advanced Floyd Mayweather $610,000 to settle with Prince, and also cut Prince an advanced check for 20 percent of Mayweather’s $3.05 million dollar purse, in what is one of the most interesting and violent manager-fighter altercations in boxing history.