Megafight can wait untl 2011, says Bob Arum -- Manila Bulletin

By NICK GIONGCO, Manila Bulletin

With no response from Floyd Mayweather Jr., promoter Bob Arum plans to do the next best thing: He’s willing to wait, even until next year for Mayweather to make a decision.

The Bulletin asked Arum over the July 4 weekend whether Floyd’s camp has sent any signal regarding the middle of July deadline he has set for the megafight with Manny Pacquiao. Apparently, Mayweather and his camp have not responded.

“It’s up to Mayweather if he wants to fight this year or next year,” Arum said over the phone from Los Angeles, where the Hall of Fame promoter celebrated Independence Day.

Arum made it clear that even if Mayweather decides to sit it out this year, the offer to face Pacquiao possibly in May 2011 stands.

If a Pacquiao-Mayweather duel can’t be made for November, Arum will immediately confer with Pacquiao on the prospects of signing up either Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito of Mexico.

Tapping Cotto or Margarito won’t pose any problems since they, like Pacquiao, also fight under the Top Rank banner, thus making it easier for Arum to deal with their handlers.

Meanwhile, Arum is proceeding to San Juan in Puerto Rico on Tuesday to lead the staging of this Saturday night’s big showdown featuring Juan Manuel Lopez against Filipino Abe Concepcion.

Source: mb.com.ph

Victor Conte On Boxing's 'Cloud of Suspicion' -- FanHouse

By Lem Satterfield, FanHouse

As the former BALCO founder, Victor Conte said that he spent four years "helping athletes to circumvent" Olympic style drug testing policies such as those executed by United States Anti-Doping Agency until 2003.

Now a self-proclaimed "part of the anti-doping movement," Conte, who turns 60 this month, presently runs SNAC -- an acronym for Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning -- which has been in existence since 1988 and supplies "perfectly legal sports nutrition products and supplements."

In this Youtube video, Conte, who is presently working with professional fighters, says that "there is a cloud of suspicion over the sport of boxing, and something needs to be done."

"My personal opinion is that it's [illegal drug use] rampant. Now you've got to understand that I spent four years on the dark side of this issue, and I've got a lot of contacts, and I know a lot of people, and I've got my ear to the ground," said Conte.

"So I hear all sorts of things, and not necessarily directly from the boxers themselves, but from people from the supply and distribution side of things," said Conte. "So I do believe that it's rampant, and that it will never be perfect. There are designer drugs out there, and there are some drugs that could possibly be used to circumvent the testing."

Conte said earlier on in the interview that is is not fair for boxing's focus solely to be upon fighters such as seven-division champion, Manny Pacquiao, whose career began as a 106-pounder but who has graduated, most recently, into the 147-pound class and maintained his "strength, power and speed" along the way.

"Is that suspicious? Of course it is. But he's not the only one," said Conte. "It's not fair to judge [Pacquiao] and then to not scruitinize Floyd Mayweather and many others who may have done similar things."

Source: boxing.fanhouse.com