Lawsuit: Floyd Mayweather's Bodyguards Pummeled Fan in Miami Beach

A local software technician is claiming Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s bodyguards unleashed the fury on him in Miami Beach in response to an innocuous request for a picture with the boxing legend.

Mazen Naeim was in Miami Beach for a job interview when he spotted the world-famous boxer cruising down the street on his bike. He says he was a big fan and started recording on his phone. But as he approached Mayweather and asked to snap a photo, he suddenly found himself getting clobbered by towering bodyguards, he claims.

Naeim says he was left battered and confused on the concrete.

"He just started getting beat up. He had absolutely no idea what was going to happen," Matthew Rosenfeld, Naeim's attorney, tells New Times. "There was no reason for them to do that."

Naeim's claims over the September 2020 incident are laid out in his lawsuit filed March 24 (attached below) against Mayweather in Miami-Dade County court.

The lawsuit says that the boxer's bodyguards "beat up plaintiff Mazen Naeim unprovoked." It alleges Mayweather failed to train his entourage on how to interact with fans and deal with such situations. According to Rosenfeld, there appears to be a pattern of violent conflicts between Mayweather's entourage and fans, stretching back more than 10 years.

The attorney tells New Times that Mayweather watched Naeim's beatdown and proceeded to tool away on his bicycle.

"It's okay if Floyd didn't want a picture," Rosenfeld says. "It's not okay for them to beat him up."

Rosenfeld says that while Naiem tried to resolve the matter out of court for the past two years, he was shrugged off by Mayweather's team.

"We had to do what we had to do eventually, especially when he has medical bills," Rosenfeld says.

New Times reached out to the boxer's company, Mayweather Promotions, for comment but has not received a response.

The lawsuit adds to a growing list of claims in which Mayweather's entourage has been accused of pummeling fans of the boxing champion in public.

In 2010, Mayweather allegedly sicced his bodyguards on a 21-year-old in Las Vegas after he inquired about the boxer's long-awaited showdown with Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather was later sued over the incident.

In 2017, a fan alleged that a member of the Mayweather entourage, reportedly a bodyguard, grabbed him by the neck and punched him in the face after he asked the boxer for a photo outside of Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in California. Similarly, in 2019, a man claimed he was seeking a picture with Mayweather when he was beaten up by Mayweather's posse inside a Las Vegas mall. (In the latter incident's aftermath, Mayweather's crew reportedly stated that the man was antagonizing the entourage.)

Mayweather, who has homes across the country in Beverly Hills and Las Vegas, has been a part-time Miami Beach resident for years. In 2021, he scooped up an $18 million mansion on Palm Island, a small and exclusive man-made island in Biscayne Bay.