Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather: What Can We Really Say?

By now we've all heard about the cancelled bout between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. The question now is "where do we go from here?"  If something as simple as a drug test can prevent a fight like this, then what's to keep huge fights in the future from suffering the same fate?

Floyd Mayweather and his camp, for whatever reason, assume that Manny Pacquiao may be taking Performance Enhancement Drugs. As a result, they request random blood testing in preparation for the bout. Pacquiao and his camp refuse and, you know the rest of the story. 

Fact is, the ball was in the Pacquiao camp's court and they dropped it. Pacquiao and his camp used various reasons for not wanting to take the test including fear of needles, superstion, weakness, etc. If they stuck to one reason consistently it would has been more believable. 

Pacquiao's promoter continued to make premature declarations saying the fight was off weeks before it was official. It raises the question whether he really planned on fighting Mayweather in the first place.

Surprisingly many boxing analysts, media, and ill-informed fans blamed Floyd for the cancellation saying he is a coward for making the request. The smear campaign against Floyd has overshadowed the real question of "Is Manny Pacquiao taking PEDS?"

For those of us who disregard Pacquiao's indecisiveness and continue to use Floyd as the scapegoat, what can we really say about him for sure?

Can we honestly say that we're 100 percent sure Pacquiao is clean? No, the only thing we can do is declare to ourselves and others that he's clean.  The fact he's passed urine tests is irrelevant considering prior PED users have passed those as well. 

The next couple months we will see a barrage of Pacquiao support and Mayweather criticism. However, this more of a defense tactic used to sweep the steroid accusations under the rug.

My advice is don't let hype and ill-informed people keep us from the truth. If we refuse to question certain boxers simply because they are "The people's champ", and simply use the "Villian" as the scapegoat, regardless of the facts, the sport of boxing will continue to be damaged.