By Jason Kim: Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KO’s) says he’s not afraid of taking blood tests in an interview at Fightfan. This kind of flies in the face of what many boxing fans feel about the Filipino star. Some people think that Pacquiao was the reason why his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. didn’t materialize recently. Pacquiao had no problems with taking the blood tests, saying, “I’m not against blood testing, just not the day of the fight. I’ve had that happen in the [first Erik] Morales fight. I lost that fight and my body felt very weak. I don’t feel I recovered. That is why I don’t want blood testing close to the fight.”

Mayweather pulled the random blood testing out of the hat when it came time to negotiate the March 13th fight with Pacquiao, surprising a lot of people with his request. Pacquiao was still open to taking the tests and arrived at the tests stopping at 24 days before the fight. This, unfortunately, wasn’t what Mayweather wanted to hear, because he was hoping to get the drug tests to stop at 14 days before the fight. The rest is history.

Pacquiao, sick with all this bickering back and forth, moved on and took a fight with former IBF welterweight Joshua Clottey instead on March 13th, leaving Mayweather to scrounge up a fight against 38-year-old Shane Mosley. Mayweather could have had a fight against Pacquiao, but he effectively blew it by coming forth with the random blood testing, which by the way, the California Athletic Commission doesn’t even test for.

Pacquiao, a deeply religious man, says “I’m a clean fighter who trains very hard. People don’t know how hard I train and the sacrifices I make.” Pacquiao has never been caught using steroids or growth hormones in the past, and for boxing fans who say that Manny’s head has gotten bigger, just look at photos from three years ago. Pacquiao’s head looked slightly large even then for his body. It’s just natural for him to have a slightly big head for his body, but it doesn’t mean he’s using any kind of growth hormone.

Pacquiao says “I don’t think Mayweather wanted the fight. He had too many reasons to cancel the fight. I’m not disappointed because I know I’m the one who didn’t want the fight and I have to defend myself.” I don’t know if Mayweather didn’t want the fight or not, but he certainly didn’t help himself by asking Pacquiao to take blood tests.

Mayweather should have been observant enough to see early on in the negotiation process that it was something that was a stressor for Pacquiao and not productive to putting a fight together with him. If Mayweather wanted a big $25 million dollar payday, he should have backed down on the request once he understood that this was something that Pacquiao felt strongly about. It would have been simple for Mayweather to back down, but he didn’t. And if he still insists on the blood tests taking place in the future, it looks like Mayweather will never fight Pacquiao.