One of the more interesting things to come out of my column last week was the apparent revival on the part of fans of Floyd Mayweather, or Floydists as I like to call them. Boxing hasn’t heard much from the rabid fans of “Pretty Boy” Mayweather lately, most likely because their idol has been mired in legal problems and has been barely active for years. It’s hard to be an ardent, vocal supporter of a guy who hasn’t fought in 15 months, and before that managed to fight only once a year when he wasn’t in “retirement.” Still, a lot has changed in boxing during Mayweather’s doldrums, and I was surprised to see that the Floydists hadn’t gotten the message: Floyd Mayweather is ducking Manny Pacquiao.
The Backstory: Performance Enhancing Drugs
The first round of negotiations between Pacquiao and Mayweather began in the wake of Pacman’s 2009 victory over Miguel Cotto. Initially, it looked like the fight was well on its way to being made. The two men had agreed to a 50-50 purse split and to a venue. Then Mayweather raised the issue of testing for Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs).
Floydists insist that raising this point was completely legitimate and claim Pacquiao is obviously using PEDs, right up to members of Mayweather’s own family. As an American, I believe in that little principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” and given that Pacquiao had never been accused of using PEDs prior to Mayweather accusations and that Pacquiao hasn’t flunked a drugs test of any kind, any insistence that Pacquiao is obviously on drugs is baseless and disgraceful. Furthermore, the claim that Pacquiao refuses the tests because he has something to hide is nothing more than a desperate, transparent ploy.
Manny Pacquiao is not obliged to bend to the will of Floyd Mayweather, but he is required to adhere to the standards laid out by the relevant athletic commission (in the case of the proposed fight, that was the Nevada State Athletic Commission, or NSAC) and the world sanctioning organization supplying whatever title is at stake. Raising an extraordinary issue and declaring “it’s my way or the highway” in the midst of fight negotiations is a time-tested way to scupper those negotiations, and if it wasn’t initially clear that Mayweather was using this tactic to duck Pacquiao, it certainly became so later.
The two parties went to arbitration over the issue, and as a result Mayweather agreed to a testing regime ending 14 days before the fight. Pacquiao balked and that brought the first round of talks to a close. Floydists point to this choice and accuse Pacquiao of ducking, but it is important to remember that Pacquiao was already making a major (and insulting) concession simply by agreeing to any testing regime that was more stringent than the norm applied by NSAC.
After his 2010 win over Joshua Clottey, Pacquiao gave in and agreed to the 14-day standard, the closing position of Mayweather in the first round of negotiations. By any reasonable standard, Pacquiao was at this point meeting Mayweather more than halfway, clearly defining him as a man who wanted the fight to happen. Mayweather backed off of the 14-day commitment, and reverted to insisting on Olympic-style testing, clearly defining him as the man who did not want the fight to happen. Crowning the entire affair was the bizarre and utterly false claim made by Mayweather’s people that they were never in negotiations with Pacquiao in the first place.
The Proof is in the Pudding
The sad part about Mayweather’s PED stand is that it is such an obvious sham. If the PED issue in general were so important to Mayweather, one would expect him to be more active on the issue of testing in boxing. Yet has any member of the Mayweather clan, let alone Floyd himself, gone to the annual convention of any of the world sanctioning bodies to lobby for stronger testing standards? Has he lobbied any of the major state athletic commissions? Has he done anything other than point the finger at Manny Pacquiao and throw a temper tantrum?
The answer to all those questions is no. Despite the fact that Shane Mosley is a former PED-user, the application of more stringent PED testing to Mayweather vs. Mosley was little more than a formality, and lacks the bitter, personal vehemence the Mayweathers apply to Pacquiao. The proof is in the pudding: If the Mayweathers had suddenly found PED religion, or were simply intelligent public relations tacticians, they would at least go through the motions of making PED testing into a bigger movement. They haven’t, and that speaks volumes.
Another part of the Mayweather PED sham is the implication, often made by Mayweather’s relatives, that he is clean as a whistle because “Pretty Boy” went to the Olympics and has lived with stringent testing through his entire career. Mayweather went to the Olympics in 1996, while the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) that he places such emphasis on was not even created until 2000. While I’m not accusing Floyd Mayweather of anything, claims made that, as a former Olympian, he was operating to some higher standard are patently false.
Finally, the whole PED issue is a chimera because no testing regime is full-proof. It is widely believed that the Chinese Olympic program invests heavily in PEDs designed to fool tests, just as the Soviets and East Germans did before them, and that Chinese PED treatments are available on the open market. For a price, any athlete can slip under even the USADA’s tests, and anyone who is truly familiar with this issue knows that. Being aware of that makes Mayweather’s PED claims about Pacquiao seem like even more of a moot point.
Will Mayweather Always Duck Out?
Anyone armed with the facts and a neutral perspective cannot help but at least suspect that Mayweather won’t fight Pacquiao unless he is forced to, and the fact is Mayweather can be forced to meet Pacquiao, because “Pretty Boy” Floyd needs the money. Mayweather has a bling-heavy lifestyle, legal bills to pay, and is surrounded by hangers-on and grasping relatives. I suspect he needs a multi-million dollar payday about once a year just to stay solvent, and Mayweather is running out of those. It is interesting to note that “Vicious” Victor is the first break in Mayweather’s cherry-picked matchmaking style since Jose Luis Castillo in 2002. I suspect HBO wasn’t willing to pay Mayweather a hefty purse to fight the likes of Joshua Clottey and Viachelsav Senchenko. It may be that in 2012 or 2013 we’ll see a cash-strapped Mayweather finally agreeing to fight Pacquiao, and at that point the emperor will be wearing no clothes in more ways than one.
