Fans planning to purchase the Pacquiao-Mayweather tickets were confused last night (12/23) that the whole thing was off, after Pacman’s camp refused to play ball over Mayweather’s insistence on random drug tests for the Filipino.
The mind games are well and truly underway and Mayweather’s staff have been accused of trying to deflect criticism and suspicion of their
own fighter over the use of performance-enhancing substances. Today, Christmas Eve, it looks like the fight is back on again, or at least definitely not off, whatever the difference is.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has demanded that Pacquiao be drug tested 30 days before the bout, but Pacquiao told Top Rank president Todd duBoef that he would go ahead with a test if it’s done prior to the kick-off press conference and again after the fight. Mayweather’s camp’s claims that Pacquiao is relying on using performance-enhancers is seen by many as a sign of anxiety on their part that Pacquiao will strip Mayweather of his “Undefeated” status. All in all, it makes for a great build-up to what will be the greatest boxing match in a long time. Both Mayweather and Pacman are ready for this, but right now it is the American who seems to have blinked first. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is playing a cool game, and only responding to Mayweather’s taunts rather than contributing to the general air of madness that always precedes a big bout like this. A sense of good guy versus bad guy is being built up superbly as the world prepares to buy Mayweather v. Pacquiao tickets and take a ringside seat for a smashing fight.
The question of whether the drug test fight was merely to stir interest in the fight or to play havoc with the mind of Pacquiao goes unresolved as yet. The Mayweather team are using expressions like “level the playing field” in reference to the alleged claims of Pacman’s drug use – and this is surely to plant in the minds of spectators that their man is under some kind of disadvantage. Either way, it shows Mayweather is taking Pacquiao very seriously – a sharp contrast to how he approached the Marquez fight.
Mayweather’s zero loss record is something he prizes greatly, and one he wants to take into retirement. It is in his nature to use any device he can to swerve media scrutiny of his own game and pile the pressure on his opponent. The whole thing makes for a grand ol’ run in to this absolutely sterling match up between boxing’s two best fighters. Pacquiao is a focused man, though, and under Roach he will be sequestered far from the nonsense of the boxing mind games. The trash talking is not for him. Pacquiao prefers to let his fighting do the talking instead, but against a foe as formidable as Money May he will need to bring it, big time.
Pacquiao has earned the right make his own counterargument to the drug test conditions that Mayweather’s camp are forcing upon him. It’s been said that the boxing authority make the rules, not Floyd Mayweather, and that is the way it should be. Come on and buy tickets to Mayweather boxing Pacquiao – it’s gonna rock and you just have to be there!