Fight is on again!!!

The richest fight in boxing history came perilously close to being cancelled until Manny Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, agreed to Floyd Mayweather's request that his fighter be blood-tested for performance-enhancing drugs.

The fight is tentatively set for 13 March, probably in Las Vegas. An announcement was to be made in New York on 6 January, as both parties, defying precedent, had come to quick agreement over splitting the $50m (£31.3m) purse, the division of pay-per-view revenues that might reach $150m and the 147lb weight limit.

Then Mayweather yesterday repeated suspicions voiced several times recently by his father, Floyd Sr, that Pacquiao has taken performance-enhancing drugs, an allegation the fighter strongly denies. They wonder how the WBO welterweight champion has kept his phenomenal punching power in rising up through seven weight divisions over 14 years, and asked for Olympic-standard, random pre-fight blood tests.

"I have already agreed to the testing," Mayweather said, "and it is a shame he is not willing to do the same. It leaves me with great doubt as to the level of fairness I would be facing in the ring that night."

Arum told Reuters last night: "My gut feeling is Mayweather doesn't want to do the fight and this is his excuse. Period."

Arum's first reaction to the ultimatum was: "As far as I'm concerned, the fight is off." Within hours he had offered a compromise deal, one that Mayweather would be foolish to reject unless he wants to scupper a fight that could generate as much as $200m. "Manny will submit to as many random urine tests as requested," said Arum, who wants the testers used in the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. "Regarding the blood tests, he will subject himself to three tests, one given in January during the week the fight is formally announced, one 30 days from the fight, no later than 13 February, and the final one immediately following the fight, in Manny's locker room."

Golden Boy Promotions, which acts for Mayweather, says urine tests do not detect Human Growth Hormone, while the Olympic-standard blood tests they want do. Medical opinion is divided on the subject. Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, has dismissed the allegations as mischief-making. He said in an interview with ESPN this month: "Mayweather's side wanted it because the expert over there, Mayweather Sr, says Manny is on steroids to get bigger. They're scared of Manny and scared of his power. He'll pass any test in the world."

Pacquiao and Mayweather have had remarkably similar growth patterns. Both weighed and fought at 106lbs when 16, Mayweather as a Golden Gloves amateur star, Pacquiao as a skinny street kid in the Philippines. Pacquiao made his pro debut at the weight in 1995, and worked his way through the world's best in the lower weight divisions until moving to Los Angeles in 2001 to join Roach at his Wild Card gym, where his strong body filled out through improved nutrition and training methods.

Then he started to take on bigger fighters, such as Juan Manuel Márquez in 2004 and the super-feather warrior Erik Morales, followed by Marco Antonio Barrera, David Díaz, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and, most recently, Miguel Cotto, hardening the perception that he carries his power up through the weights.

This CV is not dissimilar to Mayweather's. Mayweather too has moved effortlessly through a gilded amateur and professional career from the same weight base, winning six pro world titles at five weights, and is clearly the bigger fighter of the two. Wrecking Pacquiao-Mayweather, for whatever reason, would amount to the most grand commercial folly. A resolution is expected imminently.

Source: guardian.co.uk