There’s going to be a fight on March 14, 2010 (Manila Time). Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao will stand at one corner. The question is, who will stand at the other corner? Will it be Ghanaian Joshua Clottey or Floyd Mayweather Jr.? After weeks of negotiation circus, Top Rank’s Bob Arum finally decided to set the WBO welterweight title fight against Clottey. The negotiation fizzled out between the two dominant American boxing promotional companies when Mayweather Jr’s camp demanded for a rigorous drug testing procedure –random examination like the Olympics that can be really close to the fight night.
The boxing commission only requires urine testing but the stringent drug testing will call for random blood and urine sampling prior to and after the proposed fight. Team Pacquiao couldn’t agree to the blood testing 30 days before the match concerned that this might affect Pacman’s performance. Pacquiao filed a lawsuit against Mayweather’s camp last month, claiming several members had defamed him by intimating he uses performance-enhancing drugs.
The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight was supposed to be one of boxing’s biggest revenue-generating fights. There’s still time before March to reopen talks but Arum has closed his doors to Mayweather for March, more especially that he feels Mayweather will start the nonsense media talk again about the testing and regulations.
Pacquiao’s new opponent in Clottey is a strong, aggressive African that beat Zab Judah of the United States for the IBF Welterweight title in August 2008 and lost a split decision to Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto last June.
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