With regards to the extra drug testing that Floyd Mayweather and Golden Boy are insisting for on for the March 13th fight with Manny Pacquiao, there are two schools of thought.
The first school is that Floyd is merely using this whole issue as a way to back out of the fight. Given how far along the negotiations have come though this isn’t that likely.
After all if he didn’t want to take the fight he could have just insisted on an unfair purse split, or that the fight be held at a higher weight. Not to mention as Floyd’s nickname suggests, he is all about dollars, $40 million of which will be coming his way if this fight goes ahead.
The second school of thought is that Floyd and possibly also Golden Boy are using the extra testing procedures as a bargaining chip to exchange for some other sort of concession. Perhaps they want more money, perhaps lesser weight penalties etc.
If the latter is true, then Floyd has surely overplayed his hand given that there is little left for Top Rank and Pacquiao to trade with at this stage of the negotiations. Golden Boy have also gone on record as saying that the blood testing is a deal breaker, leaving little room for either side to back down or make any progress or counter offers. If this issue really is the breaking of the fight after the rest of the negotiations went relatively smoothly, then the blame must rest squarely with Floyd Mayweather and his team.
Suspicion that Pacquiao could be on some kind of performance enhancing drug is one thing, but this method of testing is totally pointless either way. Urine tests show most of what blood tests do, not to mention Manny has agreed to provide a blood sample immediately after the fight. A sample from immediately after the fight would show up exactly the same as one done a few days before. On top of all this there is that fact that many of the newer designer drugs are impossible to detect anyway, making the extra testing even more unnecessary.
While blood and urine tests are similar, hair testing is the gold standard for most kinds of drugs, although is more expensive and takes longer. Given that we have plenty of time before the fight though, hair testing would be the most thorough and accurate way of doing things. It seems that Golden Boy and Mayweather are insistent on the blood testing though, which begs the question as to whether they are actually looking for any illegal supplements or are just trying to inconvenience Pacquiao before the fight.
Perhaps worse than the entire Mayweather debacle is the fact that Golden Boy have now come out as saying that all of their boxers would require extra testing to face Pacquiao as well. Apparently what was good enough for Golden Boy’s president Oscar De La Hoya isn’t for their current crop of boxers. Anyone who wants to duck Pacquiao in the future can now just insist on extra testing and effectively get out of the bout.
This supposed suspicion from Mayweather about Pacquiao is rather strange anyway considering that they both started at the same weight and have followed a similar path in moving up in weight. Sure Floyd is slightly taller, but the fact is that they have both climbed up in the weight classes to get to where they are now, and somehow the suspicion is all on Manny rather than Floyd. If you also factor in Floyd’s relatives being arrested in connection to drugs numerous times, then this is even more puzzling.
