Comments Thread For: Manny Pacquiao: The Easy Answer That Isn’t

[Ray*]

Manny should sue Boxingscene for defamation and slander.

[Sicario]

Because he doesn't have to. Whether it's out of pride or superstiton, bottom line is Manny is being accused without any evidence or reason to be accused of any wrong doing. He did compromised and it's still not good enough, why should he do whatever Floyd's camp tell him what to do.

If Floyd agreed to his demands, why cant Manny agree to floyds??

[PrtyBoyDlicious]

Cliff Rold should read Mark Vester's recent article to be enlightened.

[MindBat]

Pac dont want to be tested the day of the fight.. that's what his problem because he believes it weakens him.. What's so hard to understand?

I thought he was willing to be tested immediately after the fight. Isn't that the same day?

[Deep Water]

finally, an article about this issue which makes some sense.

[GRUSTLER]

I don't care how much Manny Pacquiao, Freddie Roach
(Who has been surprisingly silent as of recent) and Bob
Arum says. To me, Manny Pacquiao is looking suspect
and I know all his fans will come to his rescue and call
everyone names and disrespect people that have a complete
understanding on how the world works. If Pacquiao was
doing this to Floyd everyone would be bashing Floyd for
not taking the tests. I repsect Floyd Jr for handling his
business and cover all bases.

And for the record, if Floyd was acting like this towards
Manny but not wanting to take the tests I would be screaming
on him too because the truth is the truth. People act like Manny
was the only one being asks to take the test. How can he sue
when Floyd said he would take them too? You don't have to
be a lawyer to see that this case is bogus. And what does Pac
do next, goes after Malignaggi? The same guy who openly (Unlike
Floyd Jr) said he thinks Pac is on something? Man some of you kill
me being nieve on purpose.

[Gary Coleman]

Manny is extremely prideful or doing everything he can to skip out on these tests.

Would you rather:

A. Spend a fortune in court trying to sue Golden Boy, and the Mayweathers for slander or...

B. Take some simple blood tests, make $40+million dollars and participate in, what could be, the biggest fight of all time?

Easy answer: Just take the damn tests!

[Chups]

This is the truth:

Pacquiao has never failed a test because Pacquiao is clean on the PED issue.

If this possibility is the point of truth, than resistance to Team Mayweather’s testing requirements makes a lot of sense. The idea that he has some superstition about blood being drawn too close to the fight sounds silly, but athletic superstitions often are. As Kevin Costner’s immortal Crash Davis noted in the baseball classic Bull Durham, “If you believe you're playing well because you're getting laid, or because you're not getting laid, or because you wear women's underwear, then you are!” Athletic mindsets are a tricky thing.

Beyond superstition, one can cite Pacquiao’s moves up the scale (from Jr. Featherweight to Welterweight inside the last ten years) as reasons for doubt about a natural rise.

The official scales are misleading in this time.

Pacquiao is roughly the same size, as a small Welterweight, as men like Barney Ross, Jimmy McLarnin, and Jose Napoles were in their day. Like Pacquiao, McLarnin started as a teenager near Flyweight yet scored big knockouts on all points of the scale. While Pacquiao was as low as Jr. Lightweight in 2008, and is competing successfully at Welterweight now, those were weigh-in weights rather than in-ring weights.

For the first fight with Juan Manuel Marquez in 2004 at Featherweight, Pacquiao hit the scales at 125 pounds. He entered the ring, according to the unofficial HBO scales, at 137 (or Jr. Welterweight). By 2006, for the third fight with Erik Morales, Pacquiao had moved up a weight division and weighed 129 officially and 144 (a Welterweight) unofficially. Other notable spreads for Pacquiao include:

• 129 and 145 for the Juan Manuel Marquez rematch in March 2008;
• 142 and 148 ½ for the Oscar De La Hoya fight in December 2008;
• 138 and 148 for the Ricky Hatton fight in May 2009.

In other words, fighting in a division now where he doesn’t have to dramatically dry out, he winds up weighing about the same on the scale as he has in the ring for the better part of four years and his in-ring weights are fairly consistent.

The day before weigh-in era skews much of what is known about fighter size. Based on the amount of weight Pacquiao was able to put on at lower weights after weighing in, and the fact that he doesn’t grow nearly as much past his official weight higher on the scale, one could argue Pacquiao has been a small classical Welterweight for longer than he’s been in the division (and of course the larger Welterweights are really Middleweights in another time but that’s a different subject).

Perhaps his real prime growth, from 2004 to now, is really Lightweight to Welterweight in most other eras in history.

There is more of course than the scale. Pacquiao is obviously a proud man. If he’s clean, and there is no evidence to the contrary, then being accused of cheating is a strike at his pride, at his character as a man.

Those things don’t come with a price tag, even at one quarter of one billion dollars.

Make no mistake. The request for Olympic testing is an accusation. Statements to the contrary exist in the words of Team Mayweather, but standard testing for fights is to pee in a cup before and after the fight. The testing being requested allows for the possibility of consistent monitoring throughout training camp, the chance for more than ten tests (blood and urine combined) where one or two is the norm.

Pacquiao didn’t ask for this.

It’s a microscope pointed at him despite passing every test asked of him, in and out of the ring, since turning professional in 1995.

If Pacquiao knows he has never cheated, the quickest answer becomes “Go to hell.”

[johncods]

I thought he was willing to be tested immediately after the fight. Isn't that the same day?

well yea the only problem pac has is be tested very close to the fight[before ofcourse].

[MindBat]

Pacquiao being scared of needles is still a good one.