Pacquiao - Mayweather: The Blame Game...

Who is to blame for the Pacquiao - Mayweather situation?  With the mega-fight on the verge of falling apart, Jeff Pryor takes a look at where each fighter's responsibility lies for the current mess.

Setting aside the bickering and opinions on whether Pacquiao should/shouldn't/will/won't agree to additional blood testing beyond the norm in a proposed showdown with Mayweather.... at the end of the day, the blame for this fight falling through is on Floyd.

He has made a demand, asking for something above and beyond normal circumstance. It's Pacquiao's right to refuse it. If it's a deal breaker for Floyd, which it apparently is, then he can walk. The onus isn't on Pacquiao to give in to a fairly unprecedented demand in the sport.

Not saying he shouldn't do it, or that it doesn't cast a pallor over his recent victories by refusing, but ultimately the blame is at Floyd's feet because he is the one introducing a roadblock here, into what otherwise would be the standard procedures each man has adhered to throughout their nearly 27 years of professional boxing.

The fact is, either guy can demand anything they want... but if your demand isn't met, and thats why the deal isn't happening, that's where the fault lies.

However, just because Manny doesn't get the "blame" tag, doesn't mean he doesn't comes out of this every bit the loser that Mayweather does. He leaves a cloud of suspicion in his wake, and a heightened debate over why he would refuse to be tested just before fight time.

From the original Team Mayweather testing demands to Top Ranks counter proposals, the media bickering and inter-company backbiting, both sides are holding on too tight. Neither willing to cede their position on the eleventh hour testing. The bottom line is that they each give up something, or neither gets anything; a proposal they seem eager to embrace.

Big picture... the two fighter's already existing histories will color how these events will be perceived in the annals of Boxing lore. Public opinion will favor Manny in the long run, because he will very likely continue to pass all his tests, as he has throughout his career and he'll be able to point to that record as tangible proof that he did nothing wrong. His history will galvanize his position. Conversely, Mayweather has cultivated a perception that he has been largely unwilling to face dangerous opponents throughout his career. His history will erode his current position in these negotiations over time.

If their two careers end and they've never been in the ring together, Pacquiao will be able to point to his career long clean record and say that Floyd found an excuse not to fight him. For the moment however, Pacquiao has taken a P.R. hit. Should he continue to meet all of the sports current regulations with no problems, the accusations and innuendo clogging boxing news columns, message boards and water cooler debates will fade.

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As an aside, the psychology of these two fighter's current positions is interesting. Manny is at place where if he continues to refuse the testing, he will be made to look like he has something to hide. If he caves in to Mayweather's demands, he will be percieved to have been bullied into it, which Mayweather will exploit by flaunting the fact that he got to call the shots on the most lucrative boxing bout in modern history. There are few ways for Pacquiao to save face at this point.

On Mayweather's side he will once again be playing the roll of the bad guy, normally an advantageous position for him, however if his demands stand in the way of the most anticipated fight in decades happening, there will be a backlash. One other interesting factor with Mayweather is that until these negotiations, he had been quite effusive that he is the best, baddest, boxer on the planet; that neither Pacquiao, nor anyone else, posed much of a risk to him inside the squared circle. He looked at the Pacquiao that one upped him by quickly brutalizing both Hatton and De La Hoya, and demolished welterweight star Cotto, and said he wasn't worried.

But if he watched those fights coming away with the feeling that Pacquiao was some juiced up monster, he wasn't letting on just before negotiations began a month ago when he pondered near reporters, "Can Manny Pacquiao beat me? Absolutely not. Easy work, easy fight. I don't see no versatility in Manny Pacquiao. I see just a fighter, you know, a good puncher, but just one dimension."

Judging by his recent efforts to "level the playing field", perhaps Pacquiao's dominant performances shook Mayweather's confidence more than he let on. It's either that or his recent demands are revealed to be a transparent power ploy and an opportunity to diminish the Filipino's accomplishments which have been usurping Mayweather's own for some time now.

If Floyd is now intimating that Pacquiao's rise in weight over his career has been aided by illegal substances Presumably, he didn't feel exactly that way in mid November of this year when he downplayed Pacquiao's achievements, by comparing them to his own rise in weight.

"Manny Pacquiao weighed 106lb when he was 16, just like Floyd Mayweather weighed 106 when he was 16. My career is fine. What's so cool, I take no punishment, no bumps, no bruises and, when my career is over... I'll be a great promoter."

In those two sentences Mayweather ironically sums up much of his role in this whole calamity. He intimates that Pacquiao's weight gains and performances are not so unusual... look at me he says, I did the same thing, Manny's not so special. And then less than a month later, out the other side of his mouth, like the great promoter he aspires to be in the future, he has demanded there be additional testing because he suspects Pacquiao of using illegal substances to aid his rise through the ranks.

Gamesmanship, genuine concern, spiteful opportunism, a reluctance to face the best... Mayweather's demands may be a symptom of some measure of all those attributes.

"Manny Pacquiao doesn't say anything directly about fighting me because he might just know it's not a fight he can win." so said Floyd shortly before this dance began.

On the contrary it appears that Floyd feels he is in sufficient enough danger of losing to Pacquiao that, unless he can assure Pacquiao acquiesces to more testing than every other fight employs, he is willing to throw away an estimated $40 million dollar pay day.

That's his choice.

Pacquiao could end this with a relatively modest concession. If he doesn't, he opens himself up to justified scrutiny and becomes a victim of his own ignorance, hubris, or guilt.

That's his choice.

In a situation where lightly veiled accusations and ultimatums have been made, neither side appears to have a viable option for salvaging the bout, and the fight seems to be slipping away, there is only one certainty...

In a fight that doesn't happen, no one comes out the winner.

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