By Mark Vester
Umbeaten British lightweight Kevin Mitchell is backing Floyd Mayweather Jr. on the issue of drug testing in boxing. Mitchell has advised to Manny Pacquiao to accept the Olympic-style drug testing demands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. to prove to the world that he's a clean fighter.
"I think Mayweather's got a fair point with the testing. If someone won't take a drug test then there's a problem there," Mitchell told Sportinglife. "Mayweather's taken the test so what's the big deal? I'm not sure about Pacquiao's reason for not giving blood - that he feels weakened by it. I've never felt weakened giving blood, though maybe it's different for him.
Mitchell is confident British boxers are not using steroids but he feels a lot of American fighters are toying with performance enhancing drugs and steroids for human growth.
"It's pretty impossible to win titles at flyweight all the way through to welterweight. I've come up from featherweight to lightweight. Now you try getting me up to middleweight. Even if I was lifting weights to reach that size I wouldn't be fit enough to box," Mitchell said. "I think the Americans have been doing it for years - they all fly through weight divisions but still look like He-Man.
"British fighters such as Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe were beating Americans at their right weights, but when we go up a couple of weights we struggle for strength. The Americans go up five weights and are still smashing people. That only happens in comic books. Roy Jones and Shane Mosley have been caught and something's happening out there. British fighters are clean but I wouldn't put money on Americans being clean."
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