American Way: Armstrong, Mayweather presumed innocent, Pacquiao guilty -- Examiner

By Michael Marley, Examiner.com

All I'm saying, if you're a clean athlete, take your test. That's all I'm saying. That's all I've got to say. If you're a clean athlete, take the test," said Mayweather. "Show the world, you know what, I'm a natural. Take the test, that's all I say. Let them come get you at any time and take the test." - FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR., to AOL Fan House.

(Notice the phrase "come get you at any time" in light of Mosley not being blood tested in between 19 days before the Mayweather bout and the post fight testing and Lil Floyd having 18 days without a so called random test...)

"A judge may recuse himself or herself, or refuse to participate in deciding a case, because of a special interest in the outcome that could influence his or her decision. The term recuse is derived from the Latin word recusare, which means “to refuse.”

Chief Justice John Marshall, for example, recused himself in the case of Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) because he had served as attorney to one of the parties (Martin) in an earlier phase of the case. In addition, he had a financial stake in the outcome of the case. -- Answers.com

It's time, past time really, for Travis Tygart to recuse himself from the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao negotiations.

If Tygart does not step away, and take his United States Ant-Doping Agency team of durg cheat hunters along with him, then I don't see the Floyd-Manny super bout ever happening.

Tygart, who always goes out of his way to refer to Mayweather as "the clean athlete" and has made public statements which all but spell out his extreme prejudice against Pacquiao (what is Manny hiding is the undercurrent), has a stake, a big one, in there being totally random blood testing implemented and overseen by his agency.

Every time you look around, this pompous lawyer is standing firmly in Mayweather's corner. Reading between the lines, Tygart regards Mayweather as a virtual Boy Scout while continuing to suggest that Pacman is trying to dodge random blood testing.

Tygart: "Any time that a clean athlete steps up and reaches out to USADA, we're going to support them. And I think that means trying to convince all of those who have decision-making abilities to have the best policies in place to give that clean athlete the fairest opportunity to compete on a clean playing field."

The implication from this Tygart Q and A with Lem "The Gem" Satterfield of AOL Fan House, is that Mayweather is the clean guy while Pacquiao is the dirty cheater.

Tygart is consistent in painting Pacquiao as the athlete who circumvents the rules and then tries to hide his chemical cheating habits.

If Tygart has ever mentioned the lack of proof or any plausibility at all about the charges, then I missed that story.

Here's Tygart in an interview with David Mayo, MLive/Grand Rapids Press, Mayweather's hometown newspaper before the fighter moved to Las Vegas:

A: "At the end of the day, our interest is the interests of clean athletes. So anyone, Mayweather or otherwise, who stands up and says 'I want the best program to protect my right to compete,' we're going to support him. Hopefully, it's a familiarity issue. It did come over the holidays, and relatively fast, but the commissions need to learn more about it. Hopefully, that will happen, and they'll be willing to keep an open mind, and hear from the experts, and do it day in and day out, as to what's going to be best to protect clean athletes. I hope a good legacy for boxing comes out of this because it shouldn't be as easy as it is, currently, to cheat and get away with it in the sport of boxing in the United States."

When Mayweather handler Leonard Ellerbe talks, I can see Tygart's lips moving and hear the Golden Boy-Mayweather cheerleaders, de la Hoya and Schaefer, shaking their pom poms.

It's totally random drug testing, Ellerbe has just pronounced, or there will be no Lollapalooza Super Fight. He's just echoing what L'il Floyd said in the wake of his victory over Sugar Shane Mosley on May 1 but Tygart echoes both of them, of course.

Schaefer, being Swiss, does not echo, he yodels.

On this one, the "Golden Mayweather" combine let Tygart take the lead despite the revelation that the "totally random" prefight blood testing for Mosley ended 19 DAYS BEFORE THE FIGHT and for Mayweather 18 DAYS BEFORE.

These facts are especially revealing and glaring by comparison now that Pacman has publicly stated he requests a mere 14 DAY BEFORE, final prefight blood extraction followed, of course, by the mandatory post bout needle and extraction.

Tygart, the supposedly neutral drug test administrator and "Mister Clean" who will make boxing antiseptic in terms of HGH, EPO and all the rest, pooh poohed Pacquiao's switching from a 24 day before final prefight blood test and switching to 14 days before live combat begins.

“That totally misses the point,” Tygart said of the reaction some may have upon hearing of Pacquiao’s concession and the timing of Mayweather’s last blood test. “If you know you aren’t going to be tested within the last 14 days, you can cheat and get away with it. It is our right to test at any time, 30 days before the fight, 20 days before, the week of, the morning of – that provides the deterrent. If you block out a period of time and say we can’t test during that period, then an athlete could cheat and get away with it.”

I guess Tygart and his defective blood detectives were just so confident that Mosley, an admitted steroids cheater, and the morally superior Mayweather injected no banned substances into their bodies after they turned up "clean" 19 and 18 days before they fought.

I don't want to say Tygart is in bed with the "Golden Mayweather" Axis but I hear he gets his pillows from the Big Boy Mansion in Vegas. But he does have the "M" monogram removed.

(That's a random joke, son.)

Here's Tygart, again beging grilled by Brother Mayo in Michigan, on why the 14 day before test previously demanded by Mayweather wasn't such a big deal, anyway.

"Were you just using the Nevada, or the state of California, system? If that's the case, I'm not worried about the 14-day or the 24-day blackout period, I'm worried about the rest of it. If someone's telling you that's where it fell apart, I think you've got to add the follow-up, 'Well, what kind of testing was going to happen before the 14-day or the 24-day blackout period?' The 14-day period, I'm a lot less concerned about that than what you're doing in the two months before that 14-day period."

Hey, at least Tygart is consistent in always being the cabana boy for the American sports superstar.

Check out what he says about accused of rampant cheating cyclist Lance Armstrong:

“Our duty is to fairly and thoroughly pursue any and all reliable evidence of doping to reveal the truth and to ensure honest and fair athletic competition worldwide for both fans and athletes,” USADA CEO Travis Tygart said in a statement. “In circumstances where the process results in credible evidence of doping, USADA will follow its mandate to protect clean athletes and the integrity of sport by taking appropriate action.”

Now that sounds like a neutral judge, a factfinder committed to a full and fair investigation of the allegations made by top cyclist Floyd Landis.

There never was any such statement on Pacquiao from Tygart.

There is no credible evidence that even tends to show that Pacquiao is a drug cheater only the mindless allegations of people named de la Hoya, Mayweather, Malignaggi and Schaefer.

All of them, save Malignaggi, have an axe to grind against the Pinoy Idol. Yo Paulie was just talking loud and saying nothing in hopes of landing his biggest fight purse.

But Tygart and his organization have lined up with Mayweather consistently but won't undertake any investigation on Pacman as they know the allegations are illusory and not worth the paper they are not printed on.

"Proof against Pacquiao" remains imaginary.

No Floyd Landis has come leaping out of Pacman's past with credible testimony that Manny has cheated with drugs.

But Tygart and his group protect the rights of Mayweather and Armstrong.

To their credit, international cycling officals jumped to defend Armstrong, the face of cycling just as Tiger Woods remains the face of golf:

"He has to bring proof that this is true," International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge told The Associated Press on Friday. "These are accusations that need to be corroborated by proof."

"You can't condemn without proof," Rogge added. "He would be better off by giving evidence to corroborate that, otherwise he is risking a lot of libels .... You can only sanction an athlete with tangible proof."

WADA president John Fahey, in a separate interview with the AP, said if there is any substance to Landis' allegations, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or International Cycling Union should intervene.
"If he has evidence, he should make that evidence available to the USADA or UCI and I'm sure if there is any substance to that evidence, either of those bodies would act," Fahey said. "There will always be rumors about it."

I never saw any such statements from Tygart or anyone else at the USADA about Pacquiao, did you?

Oh, I get it.

The two Americans have something in common.

They're both always riding their bicycles at work.

As for Tygart, he's just a peddler with a keen interest for his own self aggrandizement and to advance his agency's profile.

One cycling official described Landis' allegations against Broken Lance and 16 other top cyclists as "the ranting of a very disturbed mind."

Can't we say the same about Pacman's accusers, most of whom are defendants in an ongoing defamation lawsuit?

I can say it but Tygart won't.

Remove Tygart, remove the USADA from the Mayweather-Pacquiao situation. They've shown their partisanship for Mayweather more than once.

Let the Nevada or Texas boxing boards choose another drug agency to administer and report the drug tests, prefight and postfight, for Floyd and Manny.

Tygart, no diplomat, has already blasted such commissions, calling them and their limited testing proecedures "a joke." He never speaks on their limited budgets, though.

When it comes to Tygart and the USADA, Armstrong is, quite properly, presumed innocent.

But Pacquiao, the foreigner, is presumed guilty.

Is that the American Way?

(mlcmarley@aol.com)

Source: examiner.com