Jeff Mayweather says the Pacquiao-Floyd negotiations failed because Pacquiao wouldn’t take the random blood tests

By Boxing News - 07/19/2010 - Comments

By Jason Kim: Jeff Mayweather, the uncle for unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr., says that the Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao negotiations sank for the same reason as the first failed negotiations, namely because Pacquiao wasn’t willing to agree to the random blood testing for performance enhancing drugs that Mayweather wanted.

In an interview by Chris Robinson from Examiner.com, Jeff Mayweather said “He [Pacquiao] agreed to random testing up to 14 days. I never knew that random had a cutoff. So basically if you don’t have a cutoff, it doesn’t mean it’s random at all. That’s why the negotiations went down. I was the same as before.”

Jeff is talking about, of course, when Pacquiao wouldn’t budge from the 24 day cutoff during the first failed negotiations with Mayweather in January 2010. Mayweather wanted the blood testing to go all the way up until 14 days before the fight, but Pacquiao held firm at 14 days.

Instead of sticking it out and continuing with the negotiations, Pacquiao pulled out and fought fellow Top Rank fighter Joshua Clottey on March 13th. Mayweather vowed after that the next time he negotiated with Pacquiao, it would be for the textbook version of random blood testing, and not one with a cutoff like Pacquiao was looking for.

It appears now that Pacquiao agreed to Mayweather’s original request for the 14 day cutoff during the second negotiations, but this was no longer valid because Mayweather now wanted random blood testing for PEDs.
Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, said that he had been working with Ross Greenburg from HBO Sports in trying to put together a fight with Mayweather and Pacquiao.

Greenburg was supposedly in contact with Mayweather’s management and trying to work out a deal for a fight in November. However, Jeff Mayweather says “I don’t think anyone ever contacted Floyd. I just think that was self-negotiation, because realistically, I have read one article where Floyd said anything.

It looks like this was all Bob’s [Arum] negotiation.” In other words, there never was any negotiation going on. It’s unclear why, if what Mayweather says is true, that Arum would be negotiating with himself and making it look as if the two sides were actively working on a deal for a fight. It may be that Mayweather’s management team were looking over some items early on, but they may have quickly lost interest if Pacquiao was only willing to submit to random blood testing up until 14 days before the fight.



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