By Chris Williams: I may be missing something here, but I don’t understand how Floyd Mayweather Jr. can be vilified for wanting his opponents to agree to random blood testing for performance enhancing drugs like human growth hormone (HCG). If this is something that can only help the sport by getting rid of dirty fighters that bulk up on growth hormone, which some people say can’t be detected by the old methods of urinalysis alone, why is Mayweather considered a bad person for wanting this? If you were a fighter, wouldn’t you want your opponent to agree to these tests if you felt that they were juicing?

I realize some boxing fans feel that Mayweather is doing it just out of fear, and I agree Mayweather does seem afraid but for different reasons. I think Mayweather is afraid of the unknown. He believes that performance enhancing drugs help a fighter, even though nothing has been proven to show that in boxing. But if Mayweather believes it, it can affect him mentally by creating fear and uncertainty in his mind.

But what Mayweather is asking for doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Why should boxing fans be angry with Mayweather for wanting his opponents to agree to drug testing for PEDs? That seems silly. I realize that in Pacquiao’s case he has a fear of needles, a fear of having his blood taken from his body and all that, but you can still understand where Mayweather is coming from in this. He’s afraid, yes, but I don’t agree that he’s afraid of Pacquiao and is looking for a way out.

On the contrary, I think Mayweather badly wants to fight Pacquiao, because where else will Mayweather get a chance to make that kind of money. But Mayweather wants to be sure that Pacquiao, along with all his opponents from this point on, are fighting clean without the benefit of performance enhancing drugs. I don’t see what Mayweather is asking for as a bad thing.

Why would it be bad if it’s something that will help identify cheats in the future? There are probably some boxers out there who are using both steroids and growth hormones to bulk up in weight quickly with muscle mass that would take them years to put on. The PEDs allows these fighters to bulk up quickly and compete against the bigger fighters. I don’t know that it will help them in a long distance fight where their stamina is tested, but I think it would possibly help them in a short fight. Personally, I’m all for the extra blood testing for performance enhancing drugs.

If they’re going to be testing in other sports for these drugs, then they need to be doing it in boxing as well. I think the urine testing was fine at one point, but the PEDs are more advanced now and the testing methods need to keep pace with the changing drugs. You can’t just stay stuck on one test forever. The boxing commission needs to be flexible and be able to adjust quickly to the changing times by having additional tests for different drugs.

I don’t think that the urine testing should be done away with, as I think it’s still useful. But I think random blood testing needs to be added to that to ensure that fighters are using other types of drugs that might not be detected with the old tried and true urine testing. Likewise, I think the blood testing needs to be random all the way up to a fight to make sure that a fighter isn’t getting off of his PED cycle before or after the drug tests.

Those drugs are very powerful, and if a fighter was allowed to cycle for 30 days before a fight, they could put on some serious weight during that time and increase their strength along with it. I don’t know what can be done for fighters that are afraid of blood testing for fear that it weakens them. It think those fighters will have to eventually accept the rules and learn to live with it the same way all of us do with other rules in our society.

It may be a pain, but when you have a fighter’s life at risk by facing someone that is bulked up by artificial means, it can be potentially dangerous. There are strength drugs that can make a fighter very strong, and this likely would have a positive benefit for their punching power. Like I don’t think it would help them with their stamina, but I think a fighter could be more than a handful in the first six to eight rounds of a fight.

By then, they could potentially decimate their opponent with their increased strength and power, and beat them up enough to score an early knockout or cruise the rest of the way. I don’t blame Mayweather one bit for wanting drug testing for his fights. He should be applauded for this instead of ridiculed.