By Colin Seymour, Examiner.com
Put in the position of having to prove he’s not on steroids if he wants his March 13 fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. to take place, Manny Pacquiao announced late Thursday that he’s suing Mayweather and his handlers for defamation of character.
The announcement, which I received via email from Pacquiao’s Los Angeles-based spokesman Winchell Campos, came on the heels of several days of public sparring over what provisions for blood tests would prevail in the contract for the March 13 bout.
There were reports that Pacquiao is superstitious about extractions of his blood, which only served to exacerbate rumors, spread principally by the Mayweathers, that steroids have been a key to Pacquiao’s abrupt move from 130 pounds to 145 pounds in the past 18 months and his astonishing success at higher weights in victories over Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto. That’s the sort of falsehood that led to the suit, Pacquiao said.
Although Top Rank head Bob Arum issued a release earlier this week saying that Pacquiao was amenable to blood tests during the ramp-up to the fight, he was not willing to adhere to the Olympic-style random testing that Mayweather and Golden Boy were proposing.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao presumably has been stewing in the Philippines, and he erupted Friday by announcing he’s taking legal action by asking Arum “to help me out in the filing of the case as soon as possible, because I have had people coming over to me now asking if I really take performance-enhancing drugs and I have cheated my way into becoming the No. 1 boxer in the world.”
In his statement released from Sarangani, Philippines, Pacquiao said his character and person have been questioned, maligned, damaged and tarnished by baseless and false accusations.
“I maintain and assure everyone that I have not used any form or kind of steroids and that my way to the top is a result of hard work, hard work, hard work and a lot of blood spilled from my past battles in the ring, not outside of it,” Pacquiao said. “I have no idea what steroids look like, and my fear in God has kept me safe and victorious through all these years.”
The steroids talk seemed to increase after Pacquiao’s two-round demolition of Hatton last May. Although I joked about the issue, my stance has been that the higher weight is more natural for Pacquiao, and that I doubt he’s using steroids. Plenty of observers disagree, and how is Pacquiao supposed to argue with them?
According to Campos’ release, Pacquiao is not against any form of drug testing mandated by any state athletic sports commission whenever, wherever he fights, adding “he just finds it funny and stupid to change a system that has been set for decades now. Pacquiao undergoes drug testing and other medical examinations before and after every fight over the past 15 years and has never failed any of these tests.
“Enough is enough,” Pacquiao stated in Tagalog. “These people, Mayweather Sr., Jr., and Golden Boy Promotions, think it is a joke and a right to accuse someone wrongly of using steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. I have tried to just brush it off as a mere pre-fight ploy, but I think they have gone overboard.”
Source: examiner.com
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