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MANILA, Philippines—For all his swagger and blabber, Floyd Mayweather Jr. fears Manny Pacquiao without a doubt.

That’s the consensus opinion of those privy with the last-minute efforts to save what could have been the dream fight of the century.

At least three of Pacquiao’s closest advisers—Top Rank head honcho Bob Arum, Mike Concz and Rex “Wakee” Salud—believe Mayweather really wanted to avoid fighting the Filipino superstar.

The undefeated American, they chorused, will regret having given up the chance to earn at least $25 million from the projected March 13 showdown in Las Vegas.

Unlike Arum, Pacquiao declined to call Mayweather a coward, although he is understood to be very angry that negotiations for the fight fell through Wednesday night (Saturday in Manila) in Santa Monica in Los Angeles, California.

Arum terminated the talks after Mayweather refused to budge from his demand to subject Pacquiao to random drug tests (See related story on A1).

“I’m very disappointed that we could not make this fight for the fans and I am angered by the false accusations from Golden Boy and the Mayweather camp that I used some type of drugs,” said Pacquiao in a statement.

“That is why I have instructed our American lawyers to proceed with the lawsuit to clear my name.”

Pacquiao filed the lawsuit against the Mayweathers (Floyd Jr. and Floyd Sr. and the boxer’s uncle Roger) and Golden Boy Promotions’ Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya for insinuating that he used steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to climb up the weight ranks.

Arum, who headed Team Pacquiao during the mediation talks on Tuesday, said he knew all along that Mayweather was not keen on fighting Pacquiao.

“Floyd Mayweather is a coward,” Arum told Mark Vester of Boxing-scene.com. “He will never fight anyone that will remotely give him a tough fight.”

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Source: http://sports.inquirer.net

The hotly anticipated fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao was teetering on the brink of collapse on Wednesday over a dispute regarding drug testing procedures, a debate that has some experts standing on Mayweather’s side.

On Wednesday, Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank proposed a drug testing schedule that would include three blood draws and an unlimited number of urine tests in an attempt to salvage the bout that hit a negotiating snag on Tuesday, when Mayweather’s side insisted on random Olympic-style drug testing administered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The world’s top two boxers had agreed to meet on March 13 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for what is expected to become the largest-grossing bout in the sport’s history.

Arum said frequent urine testing is sufficient in the final 30 days to prevent either fighter from using performance-enhancing drugs. He said Pacquiao is willing to submit blood samples in early January, in mid-February around 30 days prior to the fight and then again in the locker room immediately upon conclusion of the fight.

In the interim, Arum insisted urine testing would be sufficient.

“Everything can be picked up by urinalysis,” Arum said. “Everything.”

Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, disputed Arum’s contention and said a combination of blood and urine testing is required to be effective. He also said that to be most effective, athletes would have to be subject to random testing while out of competition.

If any testing is conducted in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight outside of what is mandated by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, it would be during competition since the fighters are scheduled to start training in early January.

“To have an effective program, you have to collect blood and urine,” Tygart said. “The reason for that is that there are some things that are only detected in urine and there are some prohibited drugs that are both very lethal and potent from a performance-enhancing standpoint that are only detected in blood. One of those, for example, is human-growth hormone (HGH). There is no urine-based tested for human-growth hormone. It doesn’t show up in the urine. It’s only a blood-based test. That’s true of a number of prohibited substances, particularly those that would enhance and aid a boxer.”

Experts told Yahoo! Sports that the amount of blood the fighters would be required to give is minimal and would have no impact upon their performance.

Pacquiao is reticent to give blood within days of a fight because he believes it weakens him, his adviser, Michael Koncz, told Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday by telephone from Manila, The Philippines, where he has been meeting with Pacquiao.

An extraordinarily angry Arum, who had harsh words for Mayweather’s camp, which includes the boxer’s father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, said a deal would have to be reached Thursday in order to salvage the show.

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com

Manny Pacquiao is going through his throwing motion at Yankee Stadium. With easy deliberation, he shows off the form he says he perfected playing elementary school baseball in the dirt-poor southern Philippines before boxing took him osver completely. His shoulder lips back, his torso pitches smoothly forward, left hand and arm torquing an imaginary ball into the depths of the air-conditioned players’ cafeteria, where he is waiting to take the field for an announcement. The diamond stud in his ear catches the light.

The baseball pose has a balletic grace at odds with the savage power that the best pound-for-pound professional boxer on earth exhibits in the ring. “Best pound-for-pound” is the mantra intoned with every story about Pacquiao. It sounds strange because he has never been bound by the laws of physics. In the past eight years, he has risen through six weight divisions to win just as many world championships. At the stadium, his promoters have arranged for the Filipino to make official his plan to fight Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto for a seventh title, the welterweight, which has a maximum limit of 147 lb. (67 kg). That is a 40-lb. swing up from the 106 lb. Pacquiao weighed at the start of his career.

He carried increased poundage through his past two jaw-droppingly awesome victories: demolishing Oscar De La Hoya in December 2008 and knocking out Ricky Hatton in two rounds in May. This is how Pacquiao’s coach Freddie Roach describes his skill: “He’ll throw a combination at you. You’ll think he’s done, but then he’ll keep pounding you. And there’s not a dense hardness to his punch. It just jumps on you. It explodes.” Roach, who has worked with boxing luminaries such as De La Hoya and Mike Tyson, offers a little poetry when he recalls the time in 2001 when Pacquiao first came into his gym. “I just did one round with mitts with him, and I thought, ‘Man, can this motherf______ fight.’”

At Yankee Stadium on this September day, the Puerto Ricans who have come out to cheer Cotto are jeering Pacquiao, but for all that physics matters, the Filipino is the favorite for the Nov. 14 Las Vegas bout. His payday, it is said, will be about $18 million. Back in the Philippines, you can pun on Pacquiao with pakyaw — a verb, pronounced the same way, that means “to monopolize, to corner the market, to take everything at wholesale in order to maximize profit.” Pacquiao knows he wants more than he has, more than boxing can give. At the stadium, he retails anecdotes from his life to a couple of Filipinos and repeats what seems to be both an assertion and a lesson learned. “‘Di ako bobo,” he says in Tagalog. “‘Di ako bobo.” “I’m not stupid.”