Manny Pacquiao/ PROOF/

[championgee]

I know this is a long article but please read,great info, proof Pacman is hiding something!

Two days before Manny Pacquiao fought Miguel Cotto, I talked with Alex Ariza, who has been Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach since early 2008. When I asked what it was like to work with an athlete of Manny’s caliber, Ariza shook his head in wonder.

“It’s an extraordinary experience,” he said. “Athletes start to backslide around age twenty-eight if they haven’t started to decline before then. Manny is thirty and he’s getting better. Our records don’t lie. Not only is he getting stronger; he’s actually getting faster as he moves up in weight. I’ve worked with some great athletes, but I’ve never worked with an athlete like Manny.”

“But there’s one thing that’s very frustrating for me,” Ariza added. “Manny won’t let me do all the tests I want to do with him. There are tests I’d love to do to determine his lung capacity, but they’re invasive and he won’t let me do them because I would have to test his blood often. And there are other measurements, quite a few, that I’d like to take, but I can’t because Manny is very secretive about his body.”

People will read what they want to into Ariza’s comments. Those who supported Floyd Mayweather Jr in the debacle that saw Mayweather-Pacquiao go from superfight to superflop after Pacquiao walked away from the table, will say that Pacquiao is able to defy the laws of nature because he’s using performance enhancing drugs.
I don’t know whether Pacquiao (or Mayweather) is using performance enhancing drugs or not. To my knowledge, no one else in the media does either. I do know that both men are entitled to the presumption of innocence in the absence of hard evidence to the contrary. And to date, no one has produced such evidence.

Still, recent events have ended the anonymity (if not immunity) that boxing enjoyed throughout the earlier public debate regarding PEDs and sports. So let’s take a look at (1) the nature of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs; (2) their role in boxing; (3) the instant controversy between the Mayweather and Pacquiao camps; and (4) some lessons that can be drawn from it all.

[championgee]

continued

Victor Conte is the founder and president of Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), which has been at the heart of several much-publicized PED scandals. He spent four months in prison after pleading guilty in 2005 to illegal steroid distribution and tax fraud.

Conte says that PED testing in boxing today is “IQ testing,” nothing more. In a recent interview with Steve Kim of Maxboxing.com, he declared, “The loopholes are so big that you could drive a Mack Truck through them. It’s really a joke. Traditional testing in boxing is basically worthless other than the detection of some types of stimulant before and after a fight. The testing is, almost by design, inept, and this basic ineptness breeds the use of performance enhancing drugs.” Random blood testing is the only way to get a hand on the underworld of PEDs in boxing today.

The presence of performance enhancing drugs in boxing (whatever the extent of their use) is a stain on the sport.

“The ring should be as fair and honorable as we can make it,” Dr. Flip Homansky says. “No fighter should be allowed to gain an unfair advantage over his opponent. PEDs are an artificial aid and no different than tampering with a fighter’s gloves.”

Still, reality dictates that more than a few fighters will use performance enhancing drugs if they think they can get away with it. Indeed, the primary reason that many fighters don’t use PEDs is that they simply can’t afford them.

“I think it’s rampant in boxing,” Conte says. “Once one person gains that additional edge in speed and power and endurance, then others will do the same. They feel like they’re almost forced to use drugs to be on a level playing field. If there was good testing and the athletes themselves believed that the programs were effective, they’d be more inclined not to use drugs. Knowing that the programs are inept; this is what fuels the idea that they gotta do what they gotta do in order to be competitive.”

No one knows how many fights have been affected by the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Pacquiao has an aversion to invasive testing. Indeed, when Shelly Finkel (who now has a “strategic alliance” with Golden Boy) co-managed Manny, he once asked the Nevada State Athletic Commission to waive a required eye test because Pacquiao didn’t want to undergo the procedure in proximity to the fight. The commission refused to grant the waiver.

“You gotta understand,” Arum said, with regard to the demand for USADA testing. “I’m dealing with a Filipino fighter who is superstitious, and I have to tell him they have the power to come into his dressing room before the fight and take his blood. Manny gets freaked out when his blood gets taken and feels that it weakens him. They would put nothing in writing as to any kind of schedule. That is ludicrous.”

Pacquiao, for his part, declared, “I’m not going to let them take my blood whenever they want when I’m getting seriously ready for a fight. They can take all the urine they want.”

The ensuing days saw a series of proposals (but little real movement) from the Pacquiao side. Essentially, Manny agreed to unlimited urine tests and three blood tests to be conducted (1) in January on the day that the fight was formally announced; (2) thirty days before the fight; and (3) in Manny’s dressing room immediately after the fight. Since USADA would not administer the tests on that basis, Arum suggested that they be conducted “by any of the independent agencies that work with the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, or Major League Baseball.” Then things went viral. The Mayweather camp had suggested all along that Pacquiao was averse to random blood tests because he had something to hide. But the suggestions had come from people whose utterances carried little weight with the mainstream media: Floyd Jr, his father, and adviser Leonard Ellerbe.

Three days before Christmas, the landscape changed. Golden Boy issued a press release under the headline, “MAYWEATHER VS PACQUIAO IN JEOPARDY AS PACQUIAO REFUSES TO COMPLY WITH UNITED STATES ANTI-DOPING DRUG TESTING PROCEDURES.”


Floyd Mayweather Jr: “I understand Pacquiao not liking having his blood taken, because frankly I don’t know anyone who does. But in a fight of this magnitude, I think it is our responsibility to subject ourselves to sportsmanship at the highest level. I have already agreed to the testing, and it is a shame that he is not willing to do the same. It leaves me with great doubt as to the level of fairness I would be facing in the ring that night.”

Leonard Ellerbe: “We hope that Manny will do the right thing and agree to the testing as it is an egregious act to deny the testing and, hence, deny millions of fans the right to see this amazing fight. We just want to make sure there is a level playing field in a sport that is a man-to-man contest that relies on strength and ability.”

One day later, Oscar De La Hoya (the primary equity participant in Golden Boy) poured his own cup of poison into the brew in the form of a blog authored for The Ring Online.

“If Pacquiao, the toughest guy on the planet, is afraid of needles and having a few tablespoons of blood drawn from his system,” De La Hoya wrote, “then something is wrong. The guy has tattoos everywhere. You’re telling me he’s afraid of needles? If Pacquiao doesn’t want to do this and risks a possible $40 million payday because he’s afraid of needles or believes he’ll be weakened by blood tests, that raises question marks. Now I have to wonder about him. I’m saying to myself, ‘Wow. Those Mosley punches, those Vargas punches, and those Pacquiao punches all felt the same.’ I’m not saying yes or no [about whether Pacquiao might be taking performance-enhancing drugs]. I’m just saying that now people have to wonder: ‘Why doesn’t he want to do this? Why is it such a big deal?’ A lot of eyebrows have been raised. This is not good at all. I would say to Pacquiao, ‘Do the test. Do it because it’s only a couple of tablespoons. Needles don’t hurt. Just look away when they put the needle in your arm.’ He’ll probably lose more blood in the fight than the blood being drawn for the test. Why don’t you want to do it? C’mon. It’s only a little bit of blood. If you have nothing to hide, then do the test.”

De La Hoya’s statement was hypocritical. For starters, there was his claim that Pacquiao’s punches felt like those of Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas (both of whom had used performance enhancing drugs prior to fighting Oscar).

Still, after the Golden Boy press release and De La Hoya blog, the suggestion that Pacquiao was using performance enhancing drugs exploded into the mainstream media. That tarnished Manny, increased enmity between the two camps, and made the issue of drug testing harder to resolve.

What are the lessons of the Mayweather-Pacquiao debacle?

Let’s start by acknowledging that, laying aside their motives and tactics, Mayweather and Golden Boy raised a legitimate issue. Boxing has a PED problem. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, but it’s there.

That said; the problem won’t be solved by focusing on one or two fighters. That would be like the National Football League coming up with a steroid plan to test Peyton Manning and Tom Brady but nobody else.

In essence, Golden Boy told the world that the Nevada State Athletic Commission couldn’t (or wouldn’t) test effectively for performance enhancing drugs. Golden Boy was right. That’s not a knock on the NSAC (which tests for PEDs as well as any commission). It’s a knock on the system.

Mayweather and Golden Boy were also correct in their assertion that there were loopholes in Pacquiao’s final testing offer. As Victor Conte told Maxboxing.com, “The clearance times of most of these drugs that are out there are well known. Some of these clear in a matter of hours or days. So if you know when you’re going to be tested a week out, you go off the use of oral testosterone, for example, and you’re going to test negative.”

The issue of PEDs in boxing cries out for uniform national medical standards. To make real headway, it should be a condition of granting a license in any state that a fighter can be tested for PEDs at any time. A federal boxing commission could set and enforce a uniform policy for PED testing. Conceivably, the Association of Boxing Commissions could also become constructively involved. Logistics and cost would make mandatory testing impractical on a broad scale. But unannounced spot testing could be implemented.

[Young Money]

Wow you are ****** - this just that shows that Pacquiao doesn't like taking tests even before Mayweather.

Did you really think you were clever in pointing this out?

Before you call me a ******* I can tell you I dont even like him - I just wanted to tell you what an idiot you are.

[Gorilla Dogs]

conspiracys conspiracys. let it go man seriously

[Phil Ivey]

Wow you are ****** - this just that shows that Pacquiao doesn't like taking tests even before Mayweather.

Did you really think you were clever in pointing this out?

Before you call me a ******* I can tell you I dont even like him - I just wanted to tell you what an idiot you are.

You're also an idiot for implying that Mayweather-Mosley fight was fixed.

[Gorilla Dogs]

hes innocent until proven guilty. remind the maywethers of that

[quick reply]

Short novel, full of fiction and fantasy.......
Apply for disney Film maybe you will use more of your talent...........
Caution, just get rid of mental institution personnel.....hide from them

[NesNY]

this was actually a fairly argued article on both sides. the quotes are accurate, as well as some facts about steroids. Where's the credit/source?

Manny showed for years that he didn't like having blood drawn...even to his own conditioning coach. The effects it had on his mind lingered from the Morales loss. That's not surprising at all. It's actually consistent. To this day, he probably won't wear anything but Cleto Reyes "puncher's" gloves (which was another of his "excuses" for the loss).

It's also consistent that Mayweather's camp accused Manny relentlessly of using steroids, before bringing up the issue as a "crusade" against PED's. Where was that crusade for Floyd's prior 40 fights?

It's perfectly fine for Floyd's camp to voice their su****ions about drug use in the sport...but slandering someone's name is not the way to do it. You bring it to a neutral commission or sanctioning body, and raise awareness through education, not defamation.

This isn't proof at all that Manny's on something...but it does explain that he doesn't like blood being drawn by ANYONE while he trains. Sure it might raise su****ions, but of course the burden of proof falls on the accuser.

So would the accusers like to submit any substantial, concrete, factual evidence?
Everyone's waiting.

[DR.ORGYY]

yea sure man....**** OUTTA HERE!!!!!!!

[trainhard_187]

Floyd was just NEVER interested in fighting Pacquiao.. Lets let it go already..