With Olympic style drug testing for the Shane Mosley – Floyd Mayweather May 1 welterweight title fight beginning this week, I thought I’d share a conversation with Manny Pacquiao trainer and Massachusett’s native Freddie Roach on this subject that I had with him last month.
Of course, negotiations between his charge Pacquiao to fight Mayweather broke down over steroid testing talk. Mayweather, encouraged by steroid accusations towards Pacquiao from his father, demanded Olympic style drug testing. Pacquiao, apparently superstitious and afraid of needles declined the demand. No compromise was reached and no fight has not taken place between the two yet.
“Fighter’s don’t make the rules. Commissions make the rules and we go by commission rules only”, Roach said, “There’s no way in the world that Floyd’s going to run the show. I’m not going to let that happen.”
But what if boxing commissions move towards using more Olympic style drug testing? Right now, most commissions require urinalysis for drug testing and do not draw blood. Despite was Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum says, experts agree that blood testing is far more effective than urine testing when it comes to finding banned substances in someone’s body.
“I would favor it”, Roach said of Olympic style drug testing being implemented by boxing commissions, “I think it’s good for the sport but I don’t think theres a lot of steroids in boxing to be honest with you. Not like other sports like baseball and football that are much more contaminated I feel.
“The tests they have now are pretty accurate. The thing is they do a urine test before and after the fight. Blood and urine show the same thing. Clear and HGH can’t be detected by any tests they have right now but I did hear that there might be a new test out there that can detect HGH.”
Some people, like Roach, feel Mayweather is demanding these additional drug tests as a way to avoid fighting Pacquiao.
“I respect Floyd as a fighter”, said Roach, “I don’t respect that he’s afraid to fight Pacquiao.”
Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see if Mayweather’s influence evantually leads to more drug testing in boxing.
