By Dave Lahr: If Manny Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum want to get the huge money fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. on March 13th, they’ll have to budge from their stance on having blood tested randomly and within the 30 day window leading up to the fight. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer and Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe both made it clear yesterday that they won’t go along with Arum’s proposal of having the Nevada Athletic Commission decide on which kinds of drug testing methods should be used for the fight.
The reason is simple. They likely understood that the Commission wouldn’t rule in their favor. Nonetheless, the Mayweather side isn’t going to budge on their request that blood testing be random and also within the 30 day period leading to the bout. Mayweather is agreeable to random blood testing all throughout the training.
However, Pacquiao doesn’t want it that way, instead agreeing to take it next month at the fight kickoff, and then 30 days before the fight and then the next day after the bout. The blood testing weakens Pacquiao and he’s not comfortable with it. Whatever the case, it appears that Mayweather’s camp won’t budge from their stance on this issue, meaning that if this fight is to take place now – or perhaps even in the future – Pacquiao and Arum will have to give in and agree to have the blood tests take place randomly throughout the training.
It’s hard to imagine that Pacquiao and Arum will walk away from $25 million over this issue. However, it’s up to them because Mayweather isn’t comfortable without random drug testing of blood taking place during during training.
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