By Chris Williams: provided that Floyd Mayweather Jr beats Victor Ortiz in September, and Manny Pacquiao gets by 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez in November, a mega fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao could be happening in May of 2012. Bob Arum, the promoter for Pacquiao, is saying that the random drug testing for a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight has already agreed upon and the purse split also isn’t an issue with the money being split 50-50. Whether Arum knows what he’s talking is the real question.

In an interview by Michael Marley at examiner.com, Arum says that the ramdom drug testing for performance enhancing drugs will be done by two different agencies with the WADA conducting the tests of Pacquiao while he’s training in the Philippines, which will take up most of the training camp, and then in the last part when Pacquiao comes to the U.S to finish up his training, the USADA will take over the testing. Mayweather wants the testing to be done by the USADA, not from another agency. Arum said this “Because USADA can only handle drug testing in the United States. The USADA can’t go there [referring to the Phillipines] and that’s where Manny will do the first part of his training, and that is that.”

I really don’t see how the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight can get made unless Arum changes his mind on this. Having the WADA doing the testing, and who will likely contract out to local Philippine labs to have Pacquiao’s blood tested, might not be what Mayweather is looking for before he’ll agree to this fight. And with Pacquiao not coming to the U.S until the last part of his training, that leaves a lot of time where Mayweather would have to go on faith in the WADA to properly conduct the testing. Arum is saying there’s no issues, but I bet Mayweather isn’t going to go along with that unless we see some movement on Arum and Pacquiao’s part in accepting the USADA as the ones that will do all the testing for the fight.