It was too good to be true. The fight that the entire world wanted to see fell apart and now the finger pointing has begun. Most are pointing at Floyd Mayweather, JR., for unreasonable requests concerning steroid testing of Pacquiao, but some disturbing news has surfaced.
On ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, Teddy Atlas stated that a source had informed him that Team Pacquiao had emailed Team Mayweather asking what the penalty would be for a positive outcome of a steroid test. This was also reported by another publication, which has to scare the boxing fans. Manny Pacquiao is the biggest name in boxing, destroying some of the best fighters in the world, and inspiring not only the Philippines but many across the world. Should it come out that he is using performance enhancing drugs, it would be a big blow for not only Pacquiao, but boxing itself.
The scariest part of this allegation is the fact that Teddy Atlas reported it. Atlas is a truth machine and is hardly ever wrong and he will not report anything unless he believes it to be true. When you add that to the fact that Floyd did budge and asked for a blood test two weeks prior to the fight rather than a week or less before, it should raise some eyebrows.
Boxing has such a negative reputation with many and when superstar Antonio Margarito proved to be loading his gloves. Shane Mosley, the man partly responsible for exposing Margarito, admitted to using steroids. Now, we have the biggest name in boxing, a man that went through notable fighters like Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, and Miguel Cotto, all by TKO recently. Pacquiao has moved up in weight and has gotten stronger, which may be the reason why Mayweather has demanded the tests.
Although there is smoke here, there may not be fire. Pacquiao has not been proven to do anything wrong throughout his career and this is the first allegation thus far. The fact that the fight fell apart with so many millions of dollars on the line is amazing. You have to ask why Mayweather demanded these tests and why Pacquiao refused. The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is now in rubble, but the story continues, and so does the speculation. What do you believe? Would you cheat for millions and millions of dollars? Many would and many have. It is a problem that boxing has and many other sports have and although we hope that Pacquiao is clean, it wouldn’t be a total shocker if he came out dirty. We should get more definitive answers regarding this situation in the near future.
With the fight dead, the two fighters move on. As reported by RSR, Mayweather is once again entertaining a bout with Matthew Hatton. It would be strictly a stay busy fight with an obvious conclusion. It would be an absolute mismatch.
Pacquiao will defend his title against Joshua Clottey, 35-3, 20 KO’s, on March 13th. Credit has to be given to Team Pacquiao for taking on Clottey, a very live underdog in this fight. The three defeats on the record of Clottey can be challenged. He lost his first fight against Carlos Baldomir by DQ in 1999, while well ahead on the cards. He was outworked by Antonio Margarito in 2006, but I would throw that out considering the history of Margarito. I believe that he has been using plaster in his hand wraps for a long time and it probably put Clottey into a shell, afraid to get hit in the face with a brick.
The last defeat on the record was a split decision loss to Miguel Cotto. It could have gone either way. When you consider that Pacquiao knocked out Cotto and Clottey lost, you could easily draw the conclusion that Manny will win, but style-wise, this is a difficult fight for the “Pacman.”
Clottey comes forward with a tight defense and is very consistent. He does not possess a big punch but he hits hard enough to stop his opponent if he can find the mark with consistency. He has never been stopped and has been in with some big punchers like Diego Corrales, Zab Judah, and Miguel Cotto. If you are going to make any comparisons between any of his past opponents and Pacquiao, Corrales and Judah are the best matches.
Corrales was moving up and took on Clottey. Clottey walked him down and ran away with the decision. Corrales was a huge puncher in the lighter divisions and brought a big punch, but he couldn’t handle the consistency of Clottey. He just kept coming. How will Pacquiao deal with a welterweight that is difficult to hit and keeps coming forward. Can he stop Clottey? Maybe. He may have to in order to come away with the victory.
The other fighter that has some similarities to Pacquiao is Zab Judah. Judah is a quick and powerful southpaw and has made his career on his timing and accuracy. He is not as good as Pacquiao, but he has many of his qualities. Clottey started slow with Zab but then he began walking him down and Judah looked for the exit.
The super fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather may never happen now and it’s easy to predict a Floyd victory over Matthew Hatton or Yuri Foreman should he opt to face one of them, and it is safe to say that there aren’t many out there that would even win a round against him, but the road for Manny is much tougher and he could lose to Clottey.
If Manny loses to Clottey, the intrigue of the fight with Mayweather is gone. The time is now and the time has passed. I, like the rest of you, was very eager to see this showdown, and it was bound to be the biggest fight of all time, making both fighters all the people involved a boatload of money. You have to wonder why it fell apart. Is there legitimacy to the claims of Team Mayweather? Do the emails exist? Let’s hope not. Boxing has enough troubles as it is without the most popular boxer in the game being proven a cheater.
