As many of you probably know from watching HBO's 24/7 leading up to the Mayweather Mosley fight (or from following the fight game generally), Saturday's fight was subject to the United States Anti-Doping Agency's rigorous testing protocol.
Without getting too bogged down with details, the main difference between traditional testing and the USADA testing is that the USADA is totally random, i.e. its staff can show up at any time and unannounced to take a specimen, and the USADA testing is not limited to urine as it tests blood as well. I reached out to Keith Kizer, the Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and he confirmed both that this was the first time that USADA testing had been used for a bout in Nevada and that the NSAC testing was also followed for the Mosley Mayweather fight, i.e. the fighters were subjected to both USADA testing and the traditional NSAC testing.
Over the next week or so, I am going to be covering USADA testing in a series of posts because it is obviously very current -- Mayweather Mosley was the first professional boxing match where the USADA testing was utilized. It is also likely to play a part in whether the highly anticipated match-up between Pacquiao and Mayweather will ever happen.
As you may recall, the issue of USADA testing derailed the Mayweather Pacquiao fight that was scheduled to take place on March 13, 2010--Pacquiao and Mayweather could not agree on a cut-off for the Olympic style testing. As detailed in this article, Pacquiao was unwilling to submit to testing within 24 days of the fight because he believed giving blood made him weak and Mayweather was adamant that the cut-off should not occur until 14 days before the fight.
During his interview with Larry Merchant on Saturday after the fight, Mayweather again stressed that he would only fight Pacquiao if the fighters both agreed to testing conducted by the USADA. As set forth in the article above, after watching the fight in the Philippines, Pacquiao stated in an interview that he is willing to submit to USADA testing as long as the cut-off is 24 days. While this is really just another term of the fight contract that needs to be negotiated and agreed upon, given Pacquiao's insistence on the 24 day cut-off (and Mayweather's previous position that the cut-off should be 14 days), this issue could again determine whether this fight will happen. Fight Lawyer.
