Did Manny Pacquiao Alter His Stance on Drug Testing? With the dominance of Floyd Mayweather over Shane Mosley still fresh in all of our minds, immediately fight
fans the world over began looking to the potential Pacquiao vs. Mayweather clash once again. The Mayweather
vs. Mosley fight was still happening as the announcers for HBO began to shift their focus as well. Now, conflicting reports have emerged regarding the negotiating snag of the first proposed contest between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, the issue of drug testing.
ESPN has picked up a story both on their website and on their televised programming, that Manny Pacquiao has altered his stance on his proposed cutoff date for blood tests prior to the fight. When the original contest collapsed, Pacquiao had stated that 24 days before the bout would be the latest he would take his test. Then, he apparently changed his stance and said that he would take blood tests up to 14 days before the encounter.
The story from ESPN was quoting a story allegedly from Manny Pacquiao’s official website, which said:
“I am willing to help the sport for the future of the sport. I do not want to see anyone cheat or cheat this sport. For that reason I am willing to consider taking blood as close as 14 days prior to the fight, as long as, my opponent does the same, and it is not a lot of blood, just enough to test. I do not want anyone having an unfair advantage where someone may get hurt. I am willing to do my part to help this sport out.”
This story emerged written by Timothy James on the site MPBoxing. This of course would be a huge boost to the chances of Pacquiao vs. Mayweather taking place. However, a conflicting report has now emerged from PhilBoxing. In this report Pacquiao “vehemently denies” changing his stance on the issue of drug testing.
Pacquiao advisor Michael Koncz told the website, “He never spoke to any reporter and never heard of the guy” who wrote the story. The article continues, now quoting the author of the piece on PhilBoxing:
“Even as he maintained that he had no official website although there are people who claim that they handle his official site. Koncz quoted Pacquiao as saying he ‘never talked to anybody about boxing and his main concern is campaigning and winning the election on May 10. (Floyd) Mayweather is not even in our minds or in our thoughts.'”
All of that means that as far as Pacquiao vs. Mayweather is concerned, we’re in just about the same place we were before. Mayweather’s stance of Olympic style testing has only been hardened by Mosley’s acceptance to the terms, while Pacquiao is perhaps unchanged in his own stance. Until these reports get cleared up, it’s hard to say what’s true or not.
Pacquiao’s upcoming election is taking precedence for the time being, and while you would think there is too much money at stake for the fight to be canned once again, that’s what we all thought the first time too. We’ll just have to wait and see at this point what the future holds for both Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, the top two pound for pound fighters in the sport.
