He’s best reason to check out Mayweather’s corner

Leonard Ellerbe says the best thing that ever happened to him was meeting Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Perhaps it is the other way around.

Mayweather will fight Oscar De La Hoya at 154 pounds Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It is the first boxing match in several years that is actually worth the hype. De La Hoya, 34, is the superstar with the matinee-idol image. Mayweather, 30, may have fewer groupies, but he is unbeaten in 37 pro fights and is, as they say in boxing, the best pound-for-pound fighter in the game today.

Of course, they say a lot of things in boxing, and most of it is baloney. Webster didn’t actually put the word “hype” into his dictionary until after he had attended two or three fights at Madison Square Garden. Then he defined the word as “a gathering of fast talkers, hustlers and former felons who persuade the public to pay $49.95 for a pay-per-view show worth 11 cents.” You can look it up.

So, when you run into somebody in boxing like Ellerbe, you do a double take. He has the market on nice guys in the sport practically to himself. After Ellerbe, you need only the fingers on one hand to count the others.

Ellerbe, 41, is Mayweather’s manager, No. 2 corner man, financial advisor, booking agent, chauffeur, workout buddy, children’s godfather, and confidant. Because Mayweather trusts him, Ellerbe is the rock that anchors the team that gets Mayweather to the ring. He handles all this with a smile, with efficiency and with the patience of a fence painter. He does it 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week. Call him at 5 a.m., call him at noon. He answers just the same and is ready to help.

Ellerbe is Mayweather’s best friend, and vice versa. Mayweather once responded to a question about the greatest moment in his life by saying, “The day I met Leonard Ellerbe.” Reminded of that, Ellerbe says, “Tears came to my eyes.”

Ellerbe is especially important for this fight because, even more than usual, storm clouds and lightning surround Mayweather.

Uncle Roger Mayweather will be back as the main trainer in his nephew’s corner Saturday night, after serving a suspension by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for running into the ring and swinging at Zeb Judah in the 10th round of a fight in April 2006.

A beaten Judah had connected with a punch below Mayweather’s belt and Uncle Roger took exception. A melee followed and the man pulling Roger out of the battle was Ellerbe, who was fined $50,000 for that entrance into the ring, $150,000 less than Roger.

When Roger was reinstated recently, commission Chairman Tony Alamo said that Ellerbe’s testimony and presence influenced the reinstatement for Uncle Roger. Timing was also good for Uncle Roger on another front. He recently got out of jail after serving six months on a domestic abuse charge.

There is more.

Floyd Mayweather Sr., Roger’s brother and the boxer’s father, was De La Hoya’s trainer for years, but when he asked for $2 million to prepare De La Hoya to fight his son, De La Hoya and his Golden Boy Productions balked. Floyd Sr. left in a huff and De La Hoya hired Freddie Roach for $1.3 million.

Now Floyd Sr., who for years had been estranged from Floyd Jr., has shown up in his son’s camp and remains there today. He has no official capacity or duties, but he is getting lots of airtime on an HBO special that is running in several segments as a preview to the fight.

When Floyd Jr. is asked why he has allowed Floyd Sr. in camp, he shrugs and says, “He’s my father.”

Michael Marley, writing last week in Boxingconfidential.com, may have captured it best: “The FMF (Fighting Mayweather Family) is going into Super Fight Week in Las Vegas doing what they do best -- backbiting, front-biting, hitting high and hitting low.”

With giant waves crashing against the side of the boat, Ellerbe remains at the helm, keeping the sails trimmed and the bow pointed into the wind. He is decision maker and peacemaker. And if you asked him, he’d be candlestick maker.

He says that Mayweather has never been more fit, never been more ready for a fight.

He says the boxing world is so caught up in this fight that it hasn’t remembered, or doesn’t believe, that this will be Mayweather’s last fight.

Mayweather said that after he beat Carlos Baldomir last November, breaking down at the news conference. When it was clear he couldn’t go on, Ellerbe walked over and hugged him.

Asked if Mayweather will reconsider retirement, especially if he loses to De La Hoya, Ellerbe says, “We don’t think about losing, never even consider it.”

Ellerbe is the breadwinner for his mother and father, and for his late brother’s children, all back in the Washington, D.C., area.

His only brother, Lawrence, a baggage handler at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, died in a work accident in 1999, leaving behind a child and a girlfriend who was one-month pregnant at the time. Lawrence Ellerbe didn’t even know.

“I can provide for my family,” Leonard Ellerbe says. “God has truly blessed me through Floyd. All my friends, where I grew up in D.C., are dead or in jail. Every last one of them.”

The slogan for this fight is, “The World Awaits.” The zoo is fast becoming a circus.

Lost in all this, happily, will be Ellerbe, who will be busy licking the envelopes and dotting the i’s, as well as keeping what little sanity there is in the nuthouse.

As the hype for this fight builds to a peak, there will be fewer Ellerbe sightings. But if you look closely, he will be the one helping little old ladies across the street.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.