by Edgar D. Macabasa – After adamantly reiterating and stressing for several days the stand that Olympic-style drug-testing for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is NON-NEGOTIABLE and Pacquiao should undergo the USADA testing or the fight is off, Mayweather’s camp is now singing a vastly different tune.
This is the latest twist in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight negotiations which has taken the boxing world in a vise grip these past six weeks. Not that this move is totally unexpected..
This could be understood to mean a few things.
ONE. This could be a move to prevent Pacquiao from going ahead with his defamation lawsuit against the Mayweathers and GBP. There is a very good chance that should a court case ensue, Floyd Mayweather, Sr. will be convicted since he has repeatedly gone on record about “HIS OPINION” that Pacquiao is on something. Floyd wouldn’t want his now-reconciled-with daddy to go behind bars again on top of a very heavy moral damage fee which Floyd Jr. might end up coughing up as Senior won’t be able to afford the amount, for sure.
With regards to Floyd Jr. and GBP, their guilt may be a lot more difficult to prove in court, but many lawyers are of the opinion that should Pacquiao file the complaint in court it is a very winnable case for him.
TWO. Floyd Mayweather really wants the fight because of his financial woes. Floyd Jr. still owes the IRS millions from the Marquez-Pacquiao bout. Before his bout with Marquez, he advanced upwards of $5M from GBP to pay part of the IRS lien on him for back taxes. He was guaranteed only $10 million for that bout, although he claimed he was guaranteed 15 million. Part of the cost for the undercards was also reportedly deducted from his purse. That plus the training expenses means he went home with almost nothing from his purse. Sure, he could have earned millions from the PPV proceeds, but given the way he spends money, that stash could be very well running low now. The IRS will be knocking on his door again in 2010.
THREE. Floyd really wants to beat Pacquiao to claim that he is the best pound-for-pound fighter of his generation. There are many who share the idea that if Floyd Mayweather beats Pacquiao he automatically becomes the best fighter of his generation. I am one of those who do not subscribe to that idea. That is similar to the idea that Torrecampo and Singsurat are better than Pacquiao because both KO’d him. If Floyd beats Manny, which he is very capable of doing given his style and his physical advantages going into the fight, that proves only that he has the style to beat Pacquiao. As far as being the best fighter of his generation, the distinction is based not on one fight alone, but on what he has accomplished his whole career. I have no doubt that Manny Pacquiao will be named the Best Fighter of the Decade covering 2000-2009. In view of that, Floyd Mayweather will have to do a lot more than just beat Pacquiao to be recognized as the best of his generation. I don’t think even defeating Shane Mosley after Pacquiao would be enough. Based on the level of competition and the manner by which Pacquiao had defeated his opponents, there is simply no contest between Pacquiao and Floyd as far as legacy is concerned right now.
FOUR. HBO has told GBP and Mayweather that HBO would not take part in any Mayweather vs. Matthew Hatton fight. This is pure guesswork. However, it is not entirely without basis. We all know that HBO holds the power to stage or not to stage a big fight. They may have let the Mayweather and Pacquiao camps do the initial talks, but when the fight was imperiled by the USADA testing demanded by Mayweather, HBO had no other choice but to step in.
FIVE. This may be another publicity stunt being pulled by Mayweather. Since a cutoff date for blood testing is still to be agreed upon, in a few days, we might be hearing that Floyd wants a blood test within 48 hours of the fight, which we already know won’t be acceptable to Pacquiao. The Pacquiao camp is amenable to a blood test 5 days before the fight. The Mayweather camp will argue that 5 days is too far away from the fight so Pacquiao will have time to ingest a PED or steroid before fight time and have it off his system immediately after the fight, never mind if that is impossible to do given that urine tests may be taken everyday until fight night. That might be the final nail in the coffin of Mayweather-Pacquiao.
Whatever the reason/s for this move, two things looks evident: First, Pacquiao’s camp has the upperhand in the negotiations right now. The fact that they have walked away from the negotiations due to the “NON-NEGOTIABLE” USADA testing demanded by Mayweather has sent the Mayweather camp the message that Pacquiao doesn’t care that much if the fight does not push through because Manny has many options aside from Mayweather. It is Mayweather that does not have a lot of options, unless we are to believe that there are several thousand fools who would watch Mayweather vs. Matthew Hatton on PPV. Second, the Mayweather camp has lost a lot of credibility in the eyes of the boxing world. After all, they insisted that the USADA testing is NON-NEGOTIABLE. Now, that they have reversed that stand, the ploy has backfired on them.