Lost in the hoopla of the Super Fight is the story about the USADA-led
drug testing protocol for the fight. In this day and age of illegal
performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), the deafening silence on the
Mayweather front is quite intriguing, considering the media mileage that
he got when he launched his so-called crusade to clean up the sport of
boxing some five years ago.
The camp of Manny Pacquiao has stated that the Filipino pugilist has
been tested thirteen times already, with the latest one occurring just
hours before Friday's weigh-in for the Super Fight. On the other hand,
we have no information on the side of Mayweather about his United States
Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) visits. And unlike in past editions of
Showtime's All Access that showed Mayweather being visited by the drug
testing team before previous fights, the pre-fight Inside Mayweather
Pacquiao did not show any clips of the USADA team paying a visit to the
pound-for-pound king to collect his blood and urine specimen.
For about five years, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his minions regularly
attributed the failure of the "super fight" with Manny Pacquiao to come
to fruition back in 2009 to the Filipino superstar's refusal to take an
"Olympic-style drug testing."
For years, "Take the test! Take the test!" was Mayweather 's battle cry
-- he claims that he wants a clean fight and a level playing field
against any fighter that he will face.
But whether he was serious enough about cleaning up the sport, or if it
was just a ploy to avoid Manny Pacquiao, we now all have our own
conclusions and opinions that will warrant another article. Suffice it
to say, some of the boxers who were caught doping after the
much-publicized call for random Olympic-style drug testing were members
of The Money Team (TMT).
Manny Pacquiao, since being kayoed by a 'suspicious' Juan Manuel Marquez
in their fourth fight, has undergone and passed drug-testing for most
of his succeeding fights under the auspices of the Voluntary Anti-Doping
Association (VADA), hands-down the best entity that administers drug
testing in the fight game today.
The Mayweather-Pacquiao Super Fight has been dubbed as the "Fight of the
Century." Interest in the fight from both die-hard and casual fans is
at an all time high, and the corresponding media coverage is on
overdrive. What better way to promote Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s advocacy of
a clean sport that can reach across the board than his showdown with
his bitter nemesis Manny Pacquiao?
Sadly, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., whether it was by design or not, failed to
capitalize on the opportunity that was presented on his lap to further
enlighten the boxing world of the benefits of systematic drug testing in
boxing. Not only was he silent about the visits of the USADA team
during his training period, but also he employed people with checkered
pasts who were in one time or another linked to the illegal
performance-enhancing drug trade.
It was alleged by some boxing observers and writers alike that chemist
and an admitted steroid dealer Angel "Memo" Heredia, the architect
behind Juan Manuel Marquez's hulking transformation preceding the fourth
Manny Pacquiao fight, is in bed with the Mayweather camp for this
fight.
Alex Ariza, the erstwhile strength and conditioning coach of Manny
Pacquiao who, on several occasions, has been credited by Mayweather for
Pacquiao's success, has hinted about the S&C's role in Manny
Pacquiao's fist power on several occasions, including in a May 2, 2012
interview with David Mayo of MLive:
"Eventually, it'll come out. The truth's going to come out now. I told
you. Everybody's about to point the finger- 'He's done this, and he done
that, and he was taking this, I didn't tell him to do it, you told him
to do it.' That's what everybody is going to say."
Bob Ware, Mayweather's cornerman since the Marcos Maidana rematch, was
once implicated by TMT boxer J'Leon Love as the source of the banned
diuretic hydrochlorothiazide that he took before his fight against
Gabriel Rosado. Following the fight, the Detroit boxer was suspended by
the Nevada Athletic Commission for six months, fined $10,000 and had his
contested split decision win changed to "no-contest." In a June 28,
2013 report by David P. Greisman of BoxingScene.com about the
controversy, J'Leon Love "took a pill... without asking what it was...
from strength and conditioning coach Bob Ware."
It is puzzling to many boxing observers why Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who
has professed on many occasions that he wants to clean the sport of drug
cheats and purveyors, would remain mum before the biggest fight of his
career on the testing regimen that the USADA administered on him, which
could have potentially immensely helped enlighten people in and around
boxing about the process.
It is mind-boggling to the boxing world that Floyd Mayweather, Jr. would
still surround and associate himself with controversial strength and
conditioning trainers and coaches whose characters are suspect when it
comes to illegal PEDs, while at the same time wants to picture himself
as boxing's poster child of Olympic-style drug testing.
As one commenter on an online boxing forum opined: "It is really funny
that the one who was accused without proof of being on illegal PEDs is
the one who is more open and vocal about the random testing for this
fight than the one who proclaimed that he wants an Olympic-style drug
testing to clean up the sport, who decided to be secretive. What's the
real score, USADA?"
Note: Any comments, reactions, and suggestions are welcome. Hit me up at detexam@yahoo.com or join us at Detroit Boxing Examiner Facebook Page
*This articles was first published on Detroit Boxing Examiner.
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