Manny Pacquiao's Reputation at Stake on Blood Testing Issue

Reportedly, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Manny Pacquiao fight is or may be cancelled because the Mayweather camp insists on Olympic style drug testing, requiring the drawing of blood 30 days before the fight. Pacquiao refuses.

The Mayweather camp suspects that Pacquiao, who has won titles in seven weight classes and has taken his powerful punches to the higher weights, is using performance enhancing drugs, and they are looking for a clean fight.

Manny’s camp claims he won’t acquiesce to the drug test because of his superstition that having blood drawn weakens him. That is an utterly unbelievable and ridiculous statement. A punch to the face in the first round draws blood and weakens you, not a medically administered blood test. I’m not buying it.

And it’s not like the Mayweather camp is asking them to go beyond what is currently done in the Olympics. I don’t pretend to know what this entails, but if news reports are accurate, it is no more stringent that what Olympic athletes must do. And it’s not like Mayweather is not willing to follow the same rules. They have essentially called Pacquiao out to prove he’s not using PEDs. Not nice, maybe, but it’s their prerogative in the negotiations. 

And I don’t buy the argument that Mayweather is trying to get out of the fight. If that were the case, what would they do if Pacquiao said he’d agree to the more stringent drug testing, fake an injury maybe? And if he was afraid to fight Pacquiao, why unretire? That doesn't make sense.

I am no fan of the cocky, arrogant Floyd Mayweather Jr. and I am a big fan of Manny Pacquiao. But this raises all kinds of red flags.

Is Pacquiao using performance enhancing drugs? If he’s clean he would have no qualms whatsoever about submitting to a blood test. If he is taking human growth hormone or some other designer PED that is hard or impossible to detect in urine, of course he would want to avoid a blood test at all costs.

If the fight is cancelled because of this, it will likely damage Pacquiao’s reputation and raise all kinds of questions about his string of successes at the higher weight classes. If he were clean, he’d take the blood test and thumb his nose at Mayweather.