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*************.com: That being said, when people say “the commission needs to step up, the commission needs to do something here”…what is your response to that?
Keith Kizer: “Yeah, you know we try to be as helpful as we can within our limited role. At the end of the day the fighters both have to agree to the fight or it’s not going to happen. They got very, very close to doing it about 18 months ago or so. I think everybody thought it was going to happen…I think in May of 2010, and then all the sudden this drug testing demand came aboard even though Mr. Mayweather had just fought Mr. Marquez without any sort of additional drug testing. So that kind of threw a monkey wrench in everything. It just seems to be a sticking point. I can see both side’s point of view on that. It’s not uncommon in negotiations for one fighter to make demands on another fighter to play mind games or to get an upper hand. It’s also not uncommon for the other fighter to push back on that. I was surprised that a lot of that stuff was done by the Mayweather camp publicly instead of making the negotiations as you normally would. You rarely hear about negotiations being done publicly for a fight, so it was kind of strange. I think it kind of backfired on everybody involved. But then of course the fight didn’t happen and here we are 18 months later and the fight still hasn’t happened. So that’s a private negotiation situation between the two camps and their promoters, and there’s nothing for us to step to one way or the other. We already made it quite clear that if they want to do additional drug testing as Mr. Mayweather has with Mr. Mosley and Mr. Ortiz, they’re free to do that as long as they don’t get in our way. Our drug testing is the primary drug testing. It’s the principal drug testing for the fight, but if they want to do additional drug testing they can. I’ll give you an analogy. We do the weigh-in’s of course. The weigh-in, whatever we weigh the fighters at the day before, that’s the weight for the fight. As long as they make the weight they’re free to fight. If they’re a little over there may be a fine involved of course, but the fight can continue. In some situations, there’s a second day weigh-in. The IBF always does a second day weigh-in for title fights. But there’s also been other fights where the camps will contractually say “look, in addition to this, neither fighter can weigh more than a certain amount of weight the next day.” That’s completely a private situation either between the camps, or between the camps and the sanctioning body and we don’t get involved. If you make the weight 24 hours or so before the fight when we weigh them…they make the weight, they’re good to go the next day. If they have some kind of side agreement that “hey, one guy weighs too much more the next day,” or the IBF says “look you weigh too much more Saturday morning, so now it’s no longer a title fight, it’s just a 12 round special event,”—that’s fine. That’s between the camps and the sanctioning bodies involved, or just between the camps. So I see this as no different than that. I know that Richard Shaefer and Bob Arum back in early 2010 had said “look, can we just petition the commission and see if they’ll be willing to do additional testing on our dime? I want to present that to them because we want everything au****ious of the athletic commission.” I said “definitely.” Any promoter can petition the commission for anything. It doesn’t mean they’ll say yes or they’ll say no. So they both had agreed to that. I guess Mr. Pacquiao had agreed to that but Mr. Mayweather said no, he wasn’t going to do that. And that’s fine, I take no offense at that. I don’t think anyone should. So if they had done that—of course it would have to have been a joint-petition—if they had done a joint-petition to the commission for additional drug testing where they’d cover the cost so we wouldn’t have any budget issues, we would have been happy to do that. We’re still happy to do that. Again, my understanding is Golden Boy, Top Rank, and Pacquiao were in agreement to do that, but Mr. Mayweather decided not to do that, and that’s his right.”*************.com: Now why would Mayweather have not wanted that? Is it because he wanted strict USADA testing?
Keith Kizer: “I don’t know if he wanted USADA involved or he wanted to spearhead it himself and not be a joint situation, a joint spearhead. Again, neither of those things are necessarily a bad thing.”
Read more: http://www.*************.com/headlin...#ixzz1alQ2IGqk
Keith Kizer: “Yeah, you know we try to be as helpful as we can within our limited role. At the end of the day the fighters both have to agree to the fight or it’s not going to happen. They got very, very close to doing it about 18 months ago or so. I think everybody thought it was going to happen…I think in May of 2010, and then all the sudden this drug testing demand came aboard even though Mr. Mayweather had just fought Mr. Marquez without any sort of additional drug testing. So that kind of threw a monkey wrench in everything. It just seems to be a sticking point. I can see both side’s point of view on that. It’s not uncommon in negotiations for one fighter to make demands on another fighter to play mind games or to get an upper hand. It’s also not uncommon for the other fighter to push back on that. I was surprised that a lot of that stuff was done by the Mayweather camp publicly instead of making the negotiations as you normally would. You rarely hear about negotiations being done publicly for a fight, so it was kind of strange. I think it kind of backfired on everybody involved. But then of course the fight didn’t happen and here we are 18 months later and the fight still hasn’t happened. So that’s a private negotiation situation between the two camps and their promoters, and there’s nothing for us to step to one way or the other. We already made it quite clear that if they want to do additional drug testing as Mr. Mayweather has with Mr. Mosley and Mr. Ortiz, they’re free to do that as long as they don’t get in our way. Our drug testing is the primary drug testing. It’s the principal drug testing for the fight, but if they want to do additional drug testing they can. I’ll give you an analogy. We do the weigh-in’s of course. The weigh-in, whatever we weigh the fighters at the day before, that’s the weight for the fight. As long as they make the weight they’re free to fight. If they’re a little over there may be a fine involved of course, but the fight can continue. In some situations, there’s a second day weigh-in. The IBF always does a second day weigh-in for title fights. But there’s also been other fights where the camps will contractually say “look, in addition to this, neither fighter can weigh more than a certain amount of weight the next day.” That’s completely a private situation either between the camps, or between the camps and the sanctioning body and we don’t get involved. If you make the weight 24 hours or so before the fight when we weigh them…they make the weight, they’re good to go the next day. If they have some kind of side agreement that “hey, one guy weighs too much more the next day,” or the IBF says “look you weigh too much more Saturday morning, so now it’s no longer a title fight, it’s just a 12 round special event,”—that’s fine. That’s between the camps and the sanctioning bodies involved, or just between the camps. So I see this as no different than that. I know that Richard Shaefer and Bob Arum back in early 2010 had said “look, can we just petition the commission and see if they’ll be willing to do additional testing on our dime? I want to present that to them because we want everything au****ious of the athletic commission.” I said “definitely.” Any promoter can petition the commission for anything. It doesn’t mean they’ll say yes or they’ll say no. So they both had agreed to that. I guess Mr. Pacquiao had agreed to that but Mr. Mayweather said no, he wasn’t going to do that. And that’s fine, I take no offense at that. I don’t think anyone should. So if they had done that—of course it would have to have been a joint-petition—if they had done a joint-petition to the commission for additional drug testing where they’d cover the cost so we wouldn’t have any budget issues, we would have been happy to do that. We’re still happy to do that. Again, my understanding is Golden Boy, Top Rank, and Pacquiao were in agreement to do that, but Mr. Mayweather decided not to do that, and that’s his right.”*************.com: Now why would Mayweather have not wanted that? Is it because he wanted strict USADA testing?
Keith Kizer: “I don’t know if he wanted USADA involved or he wanted to spearhead it himself and not be a joint situation, a joint spearhead. Again, neither of those things are necessarily a bad thing.”
Read more: http://www.*************.com/headlin...#ixzz1alQ2IGqk
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