No Mayweather-Pacquiao yet as Nevada State Athletic Commission set to review drug testing

David Mayo | By David Mayo | The Grand Rapids Press
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on June 06, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Pat Lundvall, who chairs the most powerful body in professional boxing, wrote a research paper almost 30 years ago, while attending graduate school at the University of Nebraska, that might have held some interest to anyone watching the Cornhuskers' football team build the nation's most massive and productive collegiate linemen.

The topic: anabolic steroids.

Boxing superstars Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao aren't at an impasse this time because, contrary to published reports indicating they are close to an agreement, they don't even appear to be communicating.

However, if there is any possibility that Mayweather-Pacquiao gets made this year, the negotiations again could hinge on drug testing, the same issue around which talks broke down last winter.

floyd-mayweather-06.JPGContrary to published reports, negotiations aren't ongoing for a potential Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight.
If anything can advance those talks, it might be the Nevada State Athletic Commission, through statute, implementing an enhanced drug-testing system that would include the blood-testing format Mayweather demands.

The NSAC, which regulates boxing in the sport's most important jurisdiction, meets Wednesday in Las Vegas, with drug testing as the docket centerpiece. U.S. Anti-Doping Agency executive director Travis Tygart and Dr. Robert Voy, a Las Vegan and former chief medical officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, are expected to advocate expanded drug testing before the five-person panel.

As the drug-testing issue gained momentum when Mayweather-Pacquiao fell apart because of it -- subsequently leading Mayweather to fight Shane Mosley, with random blood and urine testing as a contractual tenet -- Lundvall, an attorney who chairs NSAC, sought to stay updated on the issue of performance-enhancing drugs, including a meeting with Tygart that lasted several hours.

She requested the issue be brought back before the commission this week to determine "where these testing protocols are going, if in fact we're deficient, do we need to change anything, do we need to modify anything."

She added it is "absolutely" incumbent upon Nevada to be on the front line of any necessary testing advancements, given its powerful position in the sport.

For the time being, the Mayweather-Pacquiao issue appears to be a non-starter.

Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather's adviser, denied Friday any talks between the two sides have taken place, and said Mayweather has no interest in discussing boxing, just five weeks after whipping Mosley.

When the proposed fight failed to materialize the first time, it fell apart over Pacquiao's refusal to have blood drawn later than 24 days before the fight, while Mayweather insisted the pre-fight window close no later than 14 days beforehand.

After those talks failed, Mayweather said his 14-day window no longer was on the table, and any renewed talks must include random testing right up until the fight. Pacquiao recently said he now would agree to a 14-day cutoff.

Lundvall said reasonable cutoffs would be one issue she and her fellow commissioners want clarified before requesting any statutory change to Nevada's current urine-only testing protocol.

Above all, she said safety and fair play are the primary concerns.

"Sporting events are really the last true merit-based program where politics don't get involved, money doesn't get involved, that true talent determines the victor," she said. "I think it's important to make sure that it's the true talent, and not some bastardized version of that talent, that makes that determination."

Beyond safety, there is the reality that Mayweather-Pacquiao almost certainly would surpass Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya as the richest fighting in history, and the host site will share in the windfall.

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Francisco Aguilar, also an attorney and NSAC commissioner, noted the panel could serve its purpose twofold if one of its decisions simultaneously happens to benefit the sport and advance the boxing industry.

"I think we are regulators, not only in the sense that we're looking at, ultimately, the health and safety of the fighters, but you're also ambassadors of the sport for the state," Aguilar said. "You want to make sure the state benefits from a sport that has been known to be Nevada's."

Or, as Lundvall said when the possibility of losing Mayweather-Pacquiao was raised, "We will fight like hell to keep it in Nevada."

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