By Chris Williams: After watching Floyd Mayweather Jr. completely dominate WBA welterweight champion Shane Mosley on Saturday night, I think we may have lost the chance of a future bout between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. The reasons why I feel this way is that because Mayweather is now even more demanding than he was before about wanting Pacquiao to agree to the Olympic style drug tests to check for performance enhancing drugs like steroids and growth hormone.
Mayweather, because of how easily he beat Mosley, is now getting a ton of praise in the boxing world for his talents. Unless I miss my guess, Mayweather is likely now considered to be the best fighter pound for pound in boxing. That’s not a knock on Pacquiao, as he’s certainly a very good fighter as well, but he hasn’t been dominating his opponents the way that Mayweather has been in his last two fights.
Pacquiao is winning, beating guys like Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey, but he’s taking a fair amount of punishment himself along the way. Pacquiao isn’t getting through his fights looking as clean as a whistle and unmarked like Mayweather has been. Mayweather has absolutely dominated Juan Manuel Marquez and now Mosley without even having any real swelling or damage to his face.
The way that Mayweather looked against Mosley on Saturday night, it’s hard to imagine that Pacquiao, as good as he is, would be able to do any better. The question is will Pacquiao give in to the pressure and take the random blood tests now so he can make the fight with Mayweather? It’s not going to look good on Pacquiao’s part if he refuses to take blood tests that Mosley, a 38-year-old fighter, was willing to take. This fight is too huge for him not consider taking the plunge and agreeing to the tests.
There is talk that the blood tests could soon be adopted by Nevada in the near future. Whether that happens or not is unclear, but it would be something good for the sport to ensure that, as Mayweather says, all fighters are on an even playing field. I don’t know that growth hormones actually help a fighter other than allowing them to add muscle quickly so that they can move up in weight and not get thrown around. However, it’s still something that needs to tested more in the sport and I can’t see how it’s a bad thing.
If Pacquiao doesn’t take the blood tests, the fight will Mayweather will never happen now, because Mayweather seems to be more emboldened to having the tests take place in all his future fights.
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