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Scott Heritage
Pittsburgh Fight Sports Examiner
June 15, 2010
After their campaign to bring random blood testing to boxing took a big hit last week, the USADA have been regrouping and trying to dispel some of the rumors going around about them.
Since the blood testing debate was made into one of the biggest issues in the sport by the negotiations between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao last year, it has been something of a mixed blessing for the agency.
It seems the biggest criticism that many people have of the USADA is the fact that Travis Tygart in particular has referred to his clients such as Mayweather as 'clean fighters'. To some extent implying that people who don't want to use their services are less than clean.
This has naturally caused many people to wrongly assume that the agency is biased in some way. Which coupled with a hard sell approach has seemingly put off both the public and the commissions for the time being. This was all preempted of course by the fact that the USADA were brought into the negotiations between Floyd and Manny on the basis of unfounded allegations on the part of Mayweather.
Floyd and his su****ions have been well documented, but the fact remains that Pacquiao has never failed a test, and has trained mainly in the Philippines for many of his fights, which would have made designer steroids difficult to come by.
Would a different approach have paid dividends for the embattled testing agency?
Floyd Mayweather, as his remunerative nickname suggests is good at generating money and by extension publicity for all those around him. In the case of the USADA though this publicity seems to have turned the public against the idea of random blood testing rather than having helped gain them much support.
The debate over whether blood testing should be introduced is certainly at the forefront again, but the public are hardly crying out for its immediate implementation. Rather than just stating that their methods are better though, a more effective way of perhaps introducing the idea to the public would have been to give examples. Athletes who they have caught that otherwise would not have been and what they took that tipped the balance unfairly in their favor.
If the USADA had made their big entrance into the sport under different circumstances, such as the upcoming Ward vs. Green fight, I think things would have gone a lot better for them. Not only would the public have been more willing to accept them, but their name would have been associated with mutual agreement and the improvement of the sport rather than a character assassination attempt on one of the world's best loved fighters.
Above all else, it still isn't very easy for the public to find detailed information on drug testing of any kind. Even a list of banned substances which blood tests can find but urine can't would be a big step forward, but other than EPO and HGH being sporadically mentioned, both of which are very difficult to detect with any kind of testing, nothing has been forthcoming.
The fact is that there are hundreds if not thousands of different drugs that athletes take to get an edge over their opponents in all sports, and keeping the public in the dark about them isn't the way to garner their support for extra testing.
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Seamus White, Pittsburgh: "Even if they had still gone with the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight but just kept quiet and not said their fighters were the clean ones they would have found more acceptance. As it is they just don't seem impartial or professional, and Tygart spouting off all the time is only making it worse"
David Elland, Philly: "Victor Conte said the NSAC findings were bull**** but before he said he knew how to cheat random blood testing as well. If boxers can cheat the testing anyway what's the point of adding more of it?"