Boxing Thread

blitzfu · December 26, 2009, 8:25am

Pac pulled out. It’s over. This is why Boxing fails:

"The Filipino pulled out of a lucrative fight to face Mayweather on 13 March after the American demanded Olympic-style drugs tests ahead of the bout.

WBO welterweight champion Pacquaio withdrew from what was expected to be the richest fight in boxing history on Wednesday following a disagreement about blood tests 30 days prior to the fight."

Seijuro-HIko · December 26, 2009, 9:12am

God damn this sucks. I was gonna throw a huge get together for this fight. Oh well atleast I still get to see the Shane Mosley fight next month.

Biolink · December 26, 2009, 9:45am

Victor Conte. The dude behind, BALCO. Barry Bonds, Shane Mosley, Marion Jones to name a few. Chimes in. Thought it was a pretty interesting little interview

Say what you want about him, but Victor Conte- the man who chemically masterminded the success of various world-class athletes while running BALCO- has a unique perspective on this debate surrounding the ‘Olympic-style’ drug testing that the camp of Floyd Mayweather is insisting on prior to them facing Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao and his camp, are balking at the insistence of drawing blood and the number of times they would be subjected to do so.

Conte believes that blood testing is vital in this instance. But not for the reason everyone thinks.

He emailed Maxboxing,:'In my opinion, blood testing for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is more important for detecting possible blood doping or use of EPO than it is for human growth hormone. Measuring hematocrit levels (percentage of red blood cells
to total whole blood volume) is very important. For example, even without a positive urine test for EPO, cyclists are temporarily suspended for two weeks if their hematocrit is greater than 50%. An elevated hematocrit can provide a significant advantage to a fighter by enhancing oxygen uptake and utilization. This would benefit a fighter in training and especially during the later rounds of a fight."

Some observers have been suspicious of Pacquiao’s recent dominance as he has moved up in weight. ‘the Pac Man’, who won his first world title as a flyweight( 112-pounds), has knocked out the trio of Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and, most recently, Miguel Cotto, in succession. Leading some to believe that he is ‘juicing’- meaning he is on a form of steroids or HGH( human growth hormone). But Conte believes that a blood test must be administered for the reason stated up above in his email.

“One, I think that increasing hematocrit levels, whether it’s by traditional blood-doping or the use of EPO, is of greater benefit to a boxer than the use of growth-hormone,” he explained."So growth-hormone is more of an anti-catobolic agent that may help to accelerate the healing of the tissue repair process. But growth-hormone is not anabolic as an anabolic steroid. It’s an anti-catabolic agent and I believe that you don’t get a very big bang for your buck. I’m not a huge fan of growth-hormone. I don’t think it’s tremendously beneficial performance enhancing substance.

**“EPO, though, in terms of boxing, is absolutely huge, both in training and as well as in a fight, especially during the later rounds.”

Conte does have experience in boxing, having worked with Andre Ward and Eddie Chambers, recently, and back in 2003, during the heyday of BALCO, assisted with Shane Mosley in his usage of illegal P.E.D’s in his rematch with Oscar De La Hoya. When asked if Mosley was on EPO for that fight, Conte answered,“Yes, he was.”**

Another factor that is essential is that the tests need to be random in nature.

“Otherwise,” he explains,“it’s what they call ‘announced testing’ and I’ve historically called that ‘I.Q. testing’. So to apply that to other sports, it would be like showing up to training camp for Major League Baseball and they test you. That’s announced testing. You have to be pretty dumb to show up at training camp or at ‘announced testing’ and test positive. The clearance time of most of these drugs that are out there are well known.”

He also says that for these substances to be utilized at their maximum efficiency, they must be properly cycled and be out of your system by the time competition begins.

“Creams, transdurmals, clear the fastest. Orals, would be next. Water-based drugs- including testosterone- would be next, then the oil-based. So some of these can clear in a matter of hours and days,” explained Conte.“So if you know when you’re going to be tested a week out, you go off the use of oral testosterone, for example, you’re going to test negative. So that is really an issue.”

Accoring to him,“Traditional testing in boxing, it’s basically worthless other than the detection of some types of stimulant, before and after a fight.”

The Mayweather camp and Golden Boy Promotions, has insisted- against Bob Arum’s wishes- on employing USADA( the United States Anti-Doping Agency) and their methods to monitor both boxers leading into the fight( which is now in serious jeopardy). But USADA’s testing is hardly foolproof, as two of Conte’s most famous clients, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, avoided detection for years from this organization.

“There’s lots of loopholes. They call that the ‘gold standard testing’. I’ve said this as far back as 2004, that there are huge loopholes that you can drive an equivelant of a Mack Truck through. the USADA testing is certainly better than what is used in professional sports but it’s still relatively easy to beat the test,” states Conte, who was also noted for working with baseball slugger Barry Bonds, during his assault on the record book." Now, I don’t know in the case of this fight, but the reason is because you’re allowed two missed tests and they can’t come back the next day because you have to be allowed a hearing to provide your reasonable explanation or the ‘exceptional circumstance’ as they call it. So they’ll just come back the next day and of course none of this is transparent. It’s like being up to hit in baseball where you get two strikes and then you smack it out of the park and hit a home run. So it’s still relatively easy to beat USADA testing and in this particular case, I do believe you need to have random, unannounced testing. To just say,‘I’ll be tested on this date’, there’s all sorts of things you can do with announced testing, you can’t do with unannounced testing."

http://www.doghouseboxing.com/DHB/Kim122509.htm#

rcaido · December 26, 2009, 9:46am

This is really stupid, i think both fighters have too much to lose so they dont want to fight each other. Its all about that money though & each one is trying to get an advantage.

About this Olympic drug test,seems kinda out there. Pacman has never failed a drug test. He’s willing to take 3 random blood test, just as long its not before the fight. Willing to take right after. He will take unlimited urine test throughout. Seems reasonable to me.

Pacman should just fucking do it though. All this superstitious thing about not having sex or taking blood at fight night seems like mental thing. This is too much of a big fight to be called off just for this.

Krimzon · December 26, 2009, 10:03am

i contend that this fight will happen in the near future. If Pac wins the lawsuit and takes Floyd’s money, it could be incentive for Floyd to drop the stipulations and try to collect his money back from Pac in a fight. Especially if there is some truth to Floyd’s unretirement because of financial woes. As for Pac, it’s conceivable that the more the Mayweather’s defame him, the more Pac just wants to destroy Floyd, especially now with the lawsuit and the wasting of time and resources. If Pac’s lawsuit is unsuccessful, it may just compound the effect and push Pac to accept random testing just to get at Floyd.

Even if it doesn’t work out in the end, it would be a big letdown but there are tons of other intriguing fights out there for both Pacquiao and Mayweather (vs any combination of Clottey, Berto, Cotto, Mosley, Williams etc etc etc etc Marquez Pacquiao III???)

Biolink · December 26, 2009, 11:03am

I doubt Pac will win that lawsuit.

He’ll have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mayweather Jr. and Goldenboy Promotions went out of their way to slander him. Mayweather and Goldenboy haven’t really said anything besides small hints that he might be on something. You haven’t even heard a peep out of Floyd Jr. during this entire Blood Testing saga.

Mayweather Sr. said directly that he thinks may be using, but I’m sure the court will rule that it was within his right to do so. As long as he was just “alleging” that Pacquiao was using steroids and didn’t go out of his way to maliciously slander him. Floyd Sr. was the one to suggest Pacquiao take a drug test, so that in itself would would be Floyd Sr’s. “alleging” argument right there.

piponaz · December 26, 2009, 2:15pm

he’s suing your girl and gbp. i’m not a lawyer so i wouldn’t comment on that. i just saying he’s suing.

what was in my argument was dumb? isn’t the usada testing an unheard stipulation as well? “please stop trying to defend floyd with the dumbest arguments.”

lmao. now, does my response make no sense? or are u just senseless? re-read your own shit again.

the links i posted was from writers who are to me not being biased to each side so we can clearly see that both are at fault here.

maybe ya’ll might pull “this is just to really make sure a level playing”, then who fought jmm coming in overweight? :wtf:

Don_Barracuda · December 26, 2009, 6:08pm

Mayweather is a bitch, there I said it.

I never believed this fight would happen, I knew at some point Mayweather would bob weave and slip his way out. I’m just surprised it was so soon.

Wut_da_Heck · December 26, 2009, 11:17pm

Seems like the direction of the fight is not gonna take a turn for the better any time soon since Mayweather and Manny are gonna have their hands full settling the drug allegations in court.

I’m still disappointed that Manny didn’t choose to give the random blood tests, but I can understand.

I bet black people are disappointed also after getting so hyped.

[media=youtube]k3ULhhIzA4Y[/media]

gunners · December 27, 2009, 12:36am

I can’t understand Pacquiao’s actions, if he had any pride he would take the drug tests. Urine tests do not test for all banned drugs and people have slipped through the net before.

If he tested positive I wouldn’t exactly be surprised and I wouldn’t exactly look down on Pacquiao either, with this much money involved I wouldn’t put it passed his fitness team to supply him these things without his full consent.

Mayweather would be a moron to not ask for more accurate drug tests, I don’t see how requesting your opponent take a drug test is ducking a fight either. Pacquiao can take this issue to court but he will win nothing. Mayweather jr isn’t stating these things as fact he’s stating his opinion/suspicions in a democratic society that’s well within his right.

Yagi · December 27, 2009, 1:07am

I could see how people could consider this ducking. I mean Jr. didn’t ask JMM to do olympic testing, did he? And yet he asks Pacquiao (whose fight night weight hasn’t changed in 3 years).

runaround · December 27, 2009, 1:39am

It’s funny, because the court proceedings are turning out just the way boxing aficionados predicted the way the match would go–Pacquiao on the offensive, Mayweather defending.

thurst · December 27, 2009, 2:42pm

lol so now arum and pac are refusing any kind of blood tests. it’s obvious to anybody that doesn’t have pac’s nuts in their mouth who is being unreasonable. if you need further evidence TheWanderer is on the side of pac and we all know how dumb that guy is.

Biolink · December 27, 2009, 3:05pm

That 30 days shit is mad sketchy, and is not going to cut it.

The rumors started from Floyd Sr.

Floyd Jr. has never been formally accused Manny of anything.

I’m sure the rumors aren’t just founded out of thin air. Floyd Sr. having a shady past or not, the dude hangs around pretty Top Tier Boxing circles. He could be mad that Manny knocked Ricky Hatton’s dumb ass out, but this seems like a lot to go through just because he’s mad about what happened to Hatton(Though its possible he harbors a grudge).

thurst · December 27, 2009, 3:22pm

malignaggi has accused pac of using PEDs, yet pac apparently has no problem fighting him. dude is a fucking joke.

Ni8wing · December 27, 2009, 4:58pm

Jr. is racist because he does not want to believe that an Asian can dominate a tough sport that black people usually dominate in. He is racist because he cannot accept the fact that an Asian can be that strong. No one ever questioned Mike Tyson’s power. Asking Pacquio to take the Olympic drug test is an insult to everything he accomplished. Pacquio always tested clean. He is a great champion but he is still not respected as one. What does the Olympics have to do with it? Pacquio passed the Nevada test and the Nevada historically is the test that is the standard of the great boxing champions of the past. Why is Pacquio being treated differently? If Pacquio was black no one would question his strength and skill. If he was black people like Sr. would have an easy time accepting his strength as it is. But since he’s an Asian it’s hard for the haters to believe that Pacquio could dominate a tough sport like boxing. If he was black Mayweather wouldn’t ask him to take the test. Nevada is good enough. It’s been the standard for so many years. Why it got to be different for Pacquio?

I hope Pacquio sues the pants off Mayweather. Right now Mayweather is hurting for money. I hope Pacquio takes him for everything he gots.

There I said it. Let the haters hate because you can’t take anything away from Pacaquio. Mayweather is scared of Pacaquio’s strength and he doesn’t want his first lost to come at the hand of an Asian. How embarrassing would that be? For a flip like Pacaquio beat a brotha like Mayweather. It didn’t sit well with the Latins when Pacaquio beat all the Latin fighters now it’s time for the blacks to get there’s but they don’t want no part of the Pacman.

thurst · December 27, 2009, 5:16pm

it’s good to see the stupid coming out of the woodwork.

kenuran · December 27, 2009, 9:02pm

Those rumors started quite a while back too. I think it was before Mayweather Jr. fought Marquez or just after (I forgot now). When it was pretty easy to just overlook the thought.

I saw Jim Rome on ESPN’s Jim Rome is Burning talk about the issue on his “Final Burn” where he basically dismisses the idea and deflects it back at Mayweather Sr. himself saying how much more ripped he looked than his own son.

Ni8wing · December 28, 2009, 12:41am

I’m just saying if Mayweather was a true champion why change the rules now? Why is he so concerned about Pacaquio? If he believed in his own ability then he would have no problem fighting Pacaquio under the same standard Nevada state rules. He shouldn’t be concerned about Pacaquio, he should only think about his own fight plan. Mayweather is a coward. The money is there and he doesn’t want to take it. He’s just looking for excuses. He should just retire and leave the sport of boxing alone. If you agree to fight someone, you fucking fight them. Mayweather picks his opponents that he thinks he has no problem beating. Pacaquio will fight anyone. I feel bad for Pacaquio because he had to have his name dragged through the mud just being associated with Mayweather. It’s not even about boxing anymore.

piponaz · December 28, 2009, 1:07am

seriously dude :wtf:! where in the article do they mention that they are refusing blood test?

and when was having a dumb fan become an evidence of being unreasonable? get the fk outta here with the b.s… pls… if you need further evidence, Thurst and TornadoFlame is on the side of floyd and we all know how dumbfk those guys are.

anyone who says Floyd isn’t ducking fights is just nave, seriously. cotto, clottey, mosley, margacheato, williams, <pacquiao=tba>.