Schaefer: Give Mayweather respect he deserves for drug-test request

Should Floyd Mayweather be admired for insisting he wants to clean up boxing with random blood testing prior to major fights ? Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, certainly thinks so…insisting that Mayweather should be afforded respect for his stance…

Schaefer, speaking exclusively to telegraph.co.uk, said the schism between his promotional group, and that of Top Rank, who promote Manny Pacquiao, may never heal. Yet it is a fight the boxing world wants to see.

“Mayweather/Pacquiao going forward is a matter of discussions, and negotiation. There is nothing to do with the Nevada Commission. The testing is just a belief of Floyd Mayweather that boxing needs to clean up its act, and I think he should get great respect for that,” Schaefer told me this week.

“It was a non-issue for Shane Mosley. I think it might be the beginning of a change in boxing. It is impossible for that [issue] to go away because Floyd Mayweather has made it clear that he will require it [a drug testing procedure, presumably blood-testing] in all future fights.”

“But Mayweather is now facing a much more powerful man than Pacquiao, more dangerous and not for more money. This guy really believes it is time to introduce proper drug testing into boxing, and he has put his money where his mouth is. Look – he was willing to walk a way with a smaller purse against a lesser opponent. That’s how much he believed in it.”
“In my eyes, Pacquiao has also moved to a smaller purse against a less dangerous opponent in Joshua Clottey. Love Floyd or hate Floyd, I said it the first time when we did de la Hoya versus Mayweather.

“He has fans who admire his skills in the urban markets – they look up to him and admire him – and there is the other group who really don’t like him because of his bragging and what he stands for with the money throwing. They don’t like him, and want to see him lose. Those who watch Floyd either love him or hate him, and he continues to win. This is a guy who always finds a way to win.”

“Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather could never happen, but my answer is not because I think there is not the will to do it. It is more that I think that Sugar Shane Mosley is going to win that fight. I have never seen Shane so hungry to win a fight.”
“It will become an issue if Mayweather wins because he made it clears that any opponent he faces will have to be tested …there is one thing in boxing, you never say never, but I have not seen in 30 years in professional business have I seen two sides with such and conviction that they were right. There is a deep divide right now – andI really don’t think suddenly, somehow later this fall everything will be nice and peachy…between the Mayweather and Pacquiao camps.”

Source: telegraph.co.uk