WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in the cleanest fighter in boxing according to his trainer Freddie Roach who recently debunked Floyd Mayweather’s assertion that Pacquiao may have been taking performance enhancing drugs.
One of the reasons why the first negotiations for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight back in 2009 fell apart was due to Mayweather’s suspicion that Pacquiao was taking performance enhancing drugs in order to gain advantage over his opponents. Mayweather’s suspicion came about when Pacquiao was knocking out just about everyone put in front of him in the ring regardless of the opponent’s size and weight. Pacquiao’s success with bigger and heavier opponents earned him the world’s only eight-division world title in boxing. As Mayweather made his pitch for the resumption of the suspended fight negotiations, he reasoned out that the failed talks were the result of Pacquiao’s refusal to take the random blood and urine tests that he sought before signing a fight deal with Pacquiao. In a live TV interview on Showtime, Mayweather revived the blood testing issue saying Pacquiao should take part of the blame for the failure of both camps to come to agree on the terms of the fight contract. “I would love to fight Manny Pacquiao,” Mayweather told Showtime’s Steve Farhood. “We tried to make the fight happen years ago, but we had problems with random blood and urine testing…like I said, I just want to be on an even playing field,” he added. Still on the blood and urine testing issue, Mayweather praised former two -division champ Paulie Malignaggi for his views about Pacquiao’s refusal to do random blood and urine tests during the early stages of negotiations. “Nobody will ever know for sure whether or not Manny was cheating back then because unfortunately he was avoiding random drug testing,” he said in this Fyte Hype article.”He was using every excuse in the book to avoid testing. That doesn’t raise suspicion?” While the random blood and urine testing issue is now moot and academic as Pacquiao had long agreed to be tested all the way up to the day of the fight, trainer Freddie Roach explained that the issue came about after Pacquiao lost to Eric Morales in 2005. “When we lost that first fight together, Manny forgot to do his blood work before the fight,” insists Freddie Roach. “So he was forced by the commission to do it the day before he stepped in the ring with Morales.” “In Manny’s mind, he felt weakened before that fight and was convinced it was the reason why he lost. Mentally he thought it made him weak.” Roach admitted that the reason the fight negotiations failed initially can be attributed to his camp but it has long been settled and Pacquiao had since agreed to be tested at random all the way up to the day of the fight.
Trainer Freddie Roach believes Manny Pacquiao will one day face Floyd Mayweather, pictured here on March 8, 2014 Kevork Djansezian, Getty/AFP/File As fight fans continue to talk about the most-awaited boxing event, the issue of blood and urine testing will always be part of the discussion leading up to the fight. Still, Roach insists that Pacquiao is not into performance enhancing drugs and has never been in his boxing career. saying the eight-division world champ is a natural fighter. “Pacquiao is the cleanest fighter in boxing” said Roach, who is doing his share to get the negotiating parties to come to terms on the world’s most anticipated boxing event.
