Mayweather tells it like it is

Floyd Mayweather on the collapse of his agreement to face Manny Pacquiao:

"I am still proposing the 14-day window but he is still unwilling to agree to it, even though this is obviously a fair compromise on my part as I wanted the testing to be up until the fight and he wanted a 30-day cut-off.

"I am ready to fight and sign the contract. Manny needs to stop making his excuses, step up and fight." (BBC Sport Website)

Amen. 30 day cut off? Just why, exactly? There's no godly reason. Either Pacquiao's ducking him, or Pacquiao's a cheat. Blood letting can affect you for a couple of days, I suppose a finely tuned athlete may feel slightly off the pace for maximum a week afterwards - but two weeks? No rational, no science will back him up.

Now then: what's he on? Some kind of EPO? That would explain his reluctance to be blood tested. It would also have been undetectable in his home country ten years ago, when he may/may not have started use. EPO only came to the fore in '98, and boxing is well behind the curve when it comes to testing. There have been no doping scandals of note in boxing; this is not because boxers are cleaner than other athletes (are you kidding? Most fighters have bullet wounds and REALY bad habits, let alone slightly questionable morals).

I wouldn't want to accuse Pacquiao of anything: I think he's a great fighter and I loved his fights with Morales and Marquez, but the facts remain that the whole situation is utterly perplexing, and the use of EPO and the subsequent cover-up would explain it. For the good of his name, for the good of boxing as a sport, I hope he pulls himself together and fights Mayweather with all the controls in place.