Q. Manny Pacquiao, when did you STOP beating your wife?
Some allegations cannot be whisked away. Not when they are cleverly posed.
Q. Manny Pacquiao, did your team really want a dirty drug test from you to be hushed up?
Pacman might be better off to try Question 1.
I know this, the general public doesn’t really care about the low blows, rabbit punches, hitting on the break and other assorted fouls committed by Bob Arum on the Manny Pacquiao side and by the Golden Boys on the Floyd Mayweather side.
They really don’t.
I mean, who would be concerned about an alligagtor fighting a crocodile in the cesspool of professional boxing at its highest (lowest?) level?
Joe Fan’s only concern is whether the fight has been made, what is the ticket and hotel information and the relevant PPV TV details.
I got it, check, check, check.
But even by swampy boxing standards, where the motto is there is no shot like the cheap shot, the allegation made by a gutless (of course, anonymous) “source familiar with the talks” that Pacquio’s side demanded to know from the Mayweather reps what “penalties Pacquiao would face if he tested dirty, and if a dirt test result could be kept secret” is the ultimate in immoral tactics.
The remarks were whispered into the ear of eager New York Daily News scribe Tiny Tim Smith and he responsibly put the information midway through his story rather than make it his first paragraph, his lead.
Here Smith showed some restraint that, frankly, I don’t have. I would’ve made this sensational albeit chickenspit allegation my lead and my tabloid, screaming headline.
I would have turned into a screamer like my alma mater New York Post’s recent front page tag on that would be airplane bomber in Detroit.
If you missed that edition, it was this classic: GREAT BALLS OF FIRE.
(For those of you submerged in a cave in Waziristan lately, the Nigerian Nutjob who wanted to blow up the Delta flight from Amsterdam and send the passenger all over Detroit and into nearby Canada had the explosive materials secreted in his underwear and wound up torching himself.)
The Post really has a knack for great front pages, you must admit.
Here’s the gist, the dirtiest bomb tossed yet to date, between the Mayweather and Pacquiao dueling sides as written by Smith:
“This isn’t some issue that just came about. It has been a part of the contract negotiations for weeks. According to a source familiar with the talks, Pacquiao’s representatives asked what penalties Pacquiao would face if he tested dirty, and also if a dirty test result could be kept secret so that the integrity of the fight wouldn’t be ruined in the public eye.
“Those are disturbing requests. It could just be due diligence on the part of the attorneys negotiating the contract or it could be that Pacquiao has something to hide. The only way to clear up the matter is to agree to the testing. Mayweather has agreed to undergo the same procedures, putting more pressure on Pacquiao.
“All of Pacquiao’s initial arguments against taking the test are specious at best. He’s afraid of needles. (How did he get all those tatoos?) He doesn’t want to be weakened by having his blood taken so close to the fight. (What happens when he gets cut in a fight?)”
No problem with Smith siding with Team Mayweather and joining their cry for random blood and urine testing. That’s what Tiny Tim gets paid for, his opinion.
And knowing Smith and his sports editor, I know you can’t make things up at the Daily Snooze.
No problem, either, with his using an anonymous source. We all do that and this issue is not exactly a matter of national security like the Pentagon Papers or Watergate.
I see that Pacman lawyer Daniel Petrocelli, who tackled OJ Simpson for a big yardage loss in Fred Goldman’s civil suit related to “the murder” of his daughter (murder in quotes because, no matter what anyone thinks #32 was found not guilty in the criminal trial) mentions this revelation funneled through the Daily News in the lawsuit.)
I seriously doubt Team Pacquiao will drag the newspaper or the reporter into the case.
But, as a fly on the wall, wouldn’t you just love to know if anyone named de la Hoya, Schaefer or Ellerbe was Smith’s well placed mole on this juicy tidbit?
Maybe those individuals will be asked about this if the case move on.
It’s like, OK, like it was when the Nazi office got shot and killed at the airport in “Casablanca” when he tried to interfere with the escape flight of Rick Blaine’s ex-lover and her Nazi fighter husband, you know… Round up the usual suspects.
If anyone can deliver a dirtier, more foul blow in boxing in this new year, I will be impressed. Or should I say depressed?
This one is about as low as you can go even in the boxing sewer
We know Tiger Woods is a cheetah.
Now they’ve painted Pacquiao as one.
