George Zimmerman’s latest attempt to bring in some cash has failed. A celebrity fight pitting Zimmerman against rapper DMX has been canceled.
Zimmerman, famous for killing Florida teen Trayvon Martin during a 2012 altercation but cleared on murder charges, has been casting about for a while trying to find ways to make himself salable and his latest idea was to agree to celebrity boxing matches. But even after this first match was set up, it was abruptly canceled.
Boxing promoter Damon Feldman made several attempts to explain why he canceled the event on Twitter, but his Tweets are not very clear as to the promoter’s reasoning.
In one Tweet, Feldman said that someone was the “wrong person to put in the ring and define celebrity boxing,” but it wasn’t clear if he was talking about Zimmerman or rapper DMX.
In another Tweet the promoter wrote, “I walked away from a million dollar payday with this fight but to be honest I’d rather be happy and make people happy thank you.”
There seems to be some doubt, though, if rapper DMX actually agreed to the boxing match in the first place.
In some reports DMX’s agent said that the rapper never officially accepted the fight.
Yet, DMX did tell celebrity gossip site TMZ that he couldn’t wait to beat Zimmerman up.
As TMZ reported on February 4, DMX said, “I am going to beat the living f**k out him … I am breaking every rule in boxing to make sure I f**k him right up.” The rapper then said he’d literally pi** on Zimmerman’s face.
Many voices were raised in opposition to the boxing match. From Al Sharpton to a petition on the White House website, many have been demanding that the match be halted.
The petition proclaims that, “the entire idea of this event is to use racial tensions to lure people in to purchase the event. this will only hurt America as it will continue to stir up racial tensions that have been on going in this nation for quite some time.”
This isn’t the first time Zimmerman has tried to bank on his notoriety. He also took to art to try and raise some money but was quickly served with a cease and desist letter from the Associated Press for basing one of his paintings on an AP photograph.