By Radio Rahim

Former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi took some social media heat when it revealed that he hired controversial strength and conditioning coach Angel "Memo" Heredia.

Malignaggi is training for his welterweight showdown with undefeated Danny Garcia. The fight takes place on August 1 as the main event of Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Memo was a former Mexican discus thrower and eventually became a chemist and sports coach.  When he was a chemist, he worked a number of prominent track and field coaches and created a number of doping substances and methods. During the firestorm of the BALCO Lab scandal, Memo explained his methods and detailed doping in dozens of interviews with media from all over the world. He was also used as an expert witness several times by the FBI and USADA [United States Anti-Doping Agency].

During the last five or six years, Memo has worked with several fighters like Juan Manuel Marquez, Jorge Arce, Jean Pascal, James Kirkland, Jessie Vargas and several others.

Most fighters hired him to consult with weight training methods - either losing it or properly gaining muscle mass.

Malignaggi hired him for this very reason, to assist with properly losing weight. In his last few fights, Malignaggi has felt a little drained during the weight cutting process and wants to avoid the same occurrence as he trains for Garcia.

But Malignaggi has been a longtime critics of eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao. Malignaggi has believed, for some time now, that Pacquiao used performance enhancing drugs during his incredible run through the numerous weight divisions.

So when Malignaggi hired the services of Memo, Pacquiao's fans were all over him.

"I hired Memo. I worked out with him in Vegas for Mayweather fight week and he just wanted to show me some workouts and see if I like them. I worked out with him that week and I said 'you now what, let's do it.' I was already drug testing for the [Danny] O'Connor and actually I've not been off random drug testing since I've been working with him," Malignaggi explained to BoxingScene.com.

"Having said that, no fighter cheats unless he wants to cheat. And a fighter that wants to cheat knows how to cheat. At day's end, I'm a fighter who doesn't want to cheat and I try to prove it the best I can. Don't just take my word for it. I volunteered for random drug testing knowing that Memo was with me, and I volunteered for it even before Memo was with me."

"It just ended up happening that within a few weeks I ended up hiring Memo. It's more [testing] than Manny Pacquiao did in five years, and when it was demanding of him [by Mayweather in 2010] and he wouldn't do it. Don't look at me as the suspicious one when I'm doing what I can to be clean and show people that I'm clean. Because first  and foremost I have too much respect for fighters. Forget about the sport for a second.

"I respect the sport a lot, but I respect fighters for getting in the ring and I feel that a guy getting in the ring who is not clean and is facing someone who is clean, is going to force that [clean] fighter to risk his life and put his life on the line. We already risk our lives enough. I would never want to be a part of something where a fighter has to risk his life more because he got in the ring with me and I'm dirty. I have too much of a conscience for that."

"I hired Memo because he's an intelligent guy. I'm having trouble with my weight. As I get older, I don't retain as much energy when I make weight as I used to when I was younger. First and foremost, when I talked to Memo - and besides the workouts which were strength training which I was impressed with because they were strength training workouts that were not dragged out."

"Some of trainers that I worked with, the strength training workouts lasted 2-3 hours and they didn't take into consideration the boxing workouts that I did. Memo's workouts were a lot shorter and left you with a lot of energy not just for that day but also for the next day. You get in shape without blowing yourself out. And I hired him also for the weight, which is even a bigger reason. He's on a consulting basis. He's a very intelligent guy. He sent me some vitamins and I had to let USADA know what I was taking. They want to know everything you take. Fans just blow things out of proportion because they want to.

"They are Manny Pacquiao fans who believe their hero would never cheat, that he would never do anything like that - and just because I say he does, that I feel he does - they want to get me on something."

"I'm not a hypocrite. I think the hypocrisy of those kind of people shows pretty blatantly when you're defending a guy who ducked, juked and jived random drug testing for five years, to the point where he avoided the biggest fight that could have been made in boxing."

"And when he was finally random drug tested, he was part of the biggest joke in boxing, which was the one-sided affair that he fought against Floyd Mayweather - which proved that when you random drug test the guy he wasn't such a good fighter after all. It only proved my opinion to me and strengthened my opinion of him to me. I don't push my opinion on anyone. People ask me about him and I give my honest opinion."