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March 2nd, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 It appears the entire Mayweather family is getting in on the debate of performance-enhancing drugs. In recent, but separate interviews, both Floyd Mayweather Sr. and Roger Mayweater continued their accusations that Manny Pacquiao is taking some sort of military grade performance-enhancer. Now, their brother, Jeff Mayweather has joined in on the discussion, however, he appears to be focusing his attack on Shane Mosley. “We don’t know if we’re going to see the real Shane until maybe this fight. This could be the first time he looks old without any stuff in his system,” he stated in a recent interview with FightHype’s own Percy Crawford, hinting that perhaps Mosley too is using some type of performance-enhancing supplements.
In all fairness, at least Jeff Mayweather restricted his comments to Mosley, who actually has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in the past. During a 2003 BALCO grand jury testimony, Mosley admitted that he “unknowingly” used the designer steroids “the cream” and “the clear” and injected himself with EPO prior to his rematch with Oscar De La Hoya. It’s also not the first time that Mosley’s abuse of performance-enhancing drugs has been called into question. In 2008, Zab Judah demanded that Mosley agree to blood testing prior to their scheduled non-title welterweight fight. “I think with the enhanced drugs that Mosley has taken in the past, I want it done before and after the fight, and I want it done now. Mosley is a smart guy, he’s not going to do it (take drugs) right before the fight,” Judah would state. Although Mosley had agreed to any additional tests at the time, nothing ever came to fruition as the fight was ultimately cancelled when Judah suffered an injury.
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February 26th, 2010 | by Andre Zurbrug
 Earlier today, Manny Pacquiao, Freddie Roach and Bob Arum held a conference call to discuss Pacquiao’s upcoming March 13th welterweight title defense against former champion Joshua Clottey. Although the majority of the conversation centered around the fight that fell through with Floyd Mayweather, they did manage to slide in a few words about Joshua Clottey and the fight, which is just two weeks away. Check out what all the participants had to say.
Arum on ticket sales…
We’re all set to go. There’s excitement in Dallas. We have less than 8,000 tickets left to go and I am truly, truly confident that we’ll have a sellout the week of the fight.
Roach on Manny Pacquiao’s training…
Manny Pacquiao is in great shape. We boxed 11 rounds yesterday with 4 different sparring partners. With all 4 of them, he’s looking really good. He’s got the gameplan in place. He did such a good job yesterday, I almost wanted to give him a day off, which Manny won’t take a day off. We’ll box 12 rounds on Saturday. That will be our peak day and then we’ll start tapering off from that point on. We’re heading to Dallas after training on Monday the 8th.
Manny’s getting better all the time, but he’s still trying to improve. We’re getting better at making the moves. We’ve watched a lot of tape on Clottey. We know his characteristics, we know his mistakes, we know his habits and, you know, I do feel that Manny Pacquiao, the way he’s training for this fight, the gameplan on how to beat Clottey is in place. I know Clottey is a big, strong guy. I respect him. He’s a great fighter, a really tough guy, but Manny Pacquiao, I feel, is going to overwhelm him with his speed and combinations and I do believe he will be the first person to stop him before the 12th round.
Pacquiao on training and Joshua Clottey…
Training camp is good. Yesterday we sparred 11 rounds…we’re doing great. Clottey, I know he’s taller and bigger than me and, you know, you can’t underestimate him because he’s a world champion also.
Roach on Floyd Mayweather…
We’re not happy with his remarks. Manny really wants to fight him in the future because of the remarks he made. It’s the first time I saw Manny, sometimes when he’s shadowboxing, he shows me how Mayweather fights and how he’s going to take care of the problem. I’ve never seen Manny do that before…the allegations, he tried to ruin our reputation, but we do want to fight him and we will knock him out.
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February 26th, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 If you haven’t been keeping up with the interesting series of interviews conducted with Murad Muhammad, the first major U.S. promoter to work with reigning pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao, you’ve missed out on a number of entertaining behind-the-scenes tidbits regarding Manny Pacquiao. While some of the revelations may sound questionable, there has been quite a bit of information that’s actually factual. The latest eye-opener surrounds a controversial subject that’s been brought up in the past, regarding the absence of any notable African American fighters on Pacquiao’s resume. According to Muhammad, there’s some truth to that logic, as the promoter shocking revealed that he purposely kept the reigning pound-for-pound champion away from African American fighters. Check out an excerpt from the interview:
If Floyd Mayweather beats Manny Pacquiao and makes that kind of money while doing it, you can start talking about him as being one of the greatest ever. On the other hand, if Manny Pacquiao beats Floyd Mayweather while making that type of money, he could go back to Manila and be a hero there. This man [Arum] stopped both of these guys from having that kind of influence on this sport. The problem with that is Mayweather is the guy to beat Pacquiao. See, I started all of this and I knew what I was doing by keeping Pacquiao away from African American fighters. You got Mayweather, an African American that don’t give a damn that’s a faster fighter than Pacquiao is. I think he would have beat the daylights out of Pacquiao, but I knew what I was doing by avoiding those types of fights for Pacquiao. I don’t know if that boy is on steroids, but Pacquiao should have said, “I will take the test if I can receive 80% of my money.” Because right now, they take 80% of what Pacquiao makes. He should have made that deal with Arum.
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February 18th, 2010 | by Andre Zurbrug
 In a recent interview, former WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto hinted that he’s backing off of his prior talk about an early retirement. Before his bout with Manny Pacquiao, Cotto stood firm on his stance that he would retire by the age of 30. Now, the Puerto Rican superstar appears to be having a change of heart. “I will fight until I am content and then walk away,” he would tell FightHype’s own Percy Crawford.
Cotto is currently set to move up in weight to the 154-pound division to challenge WBA jr. middleweight champion Yuri Foreman. Although the fight is still months away, the Caguas native has already returned to the gym for some light sparring. He’s currently helping two MMA and fellow Ecko Unltd. sponsored fighters, former WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Torres and UFC lightweight contender Kurt Pellegrino, as both men prepare for their upcoming fights. Perhaps the time he’s spent in camp with the mixed martial artists has renewed the hunger of the two-division world champion.
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February 15th, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 In an intriguing series of interviews, Murad Muhammad, the first major U.S. promoter to work with reigning pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao, has revealed a number of interesting behind-the-scenes facts regarding some of his biggest victories. The latest revelations surrounds Pacquiao’s first bout with Marco Antonio Barrera, a fight he ultimately won via 11th round stoppage. According to Muhammad, that outcome may have never happened if it wasn’t discovered that Barrera’s team was using the wrong type of gauze while wrapping his hands. Check out an excerpt from the interview explaining the details:
So we put the fight on. While we in the fight, they realize that they [Team Barrera] getting ready to put the wrong gauze on, and I give blame to the Texas Commission because he didn’t know nothing about changing the gauze and all of that. I told him, ‘The gauze will be alright if they don’t wet it, so let us police it and make sure we get to see the gloves go on and they tied up.’ He granted it to me. So they shaking now because they can’t wet it and they got the gloves on. In the first round, we whooping Barrera’s tail, the 2nd round, we’re whooping his tail, but if you recall, the bell went ding and seconds after the bell, he [Barrera] hit Pacquiao and dropped him. If he had that gauze that was soaking wet, it would have turned into a cast and that fight would have been over, but Pacquiao gets up and goes back to his corner and we beating him so bad that he’s willing to quit in the 6th round. His corner told him, ‘You can’t go out like this. You gotta fight like a man.’ He stood in there for 11 rounds and we beat him up and knocked him out in the 11th round. You would have thought we were God.
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February 1st, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 “Pacquiao is an easier fight for Mayweathr than Shane is,” commented Tony Morgan, trainer of WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto, as he shared his thoughts on the recent news that Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather have agreed to fight each other. Pacquiao easier than Mosley? Say what? According to Morgan, it’s a matter of styles and facts. “I’m going to break it down real simple for people. You look at two things. Styles make fights and facts are facts,” he continued.
“Okay. Cotto’s got a good jab and Floyd has a great jab. Cotto hit Pacquiao whenever he wanted to hit him with it,” Morgan would explain. “Cotto has good defense as far as movement and if anybody who watched that fight will see, whenever Pacquiao threw punches and Cotto was moving, he was picking everything off that Pacquiao threw. Cotto’s got good movement and Floyd’s got great movement, so Floyd will hit Pacquiao when he wants and Pacquiao can’t hit Floyd in his butt (laughing). He won’t even hit him. It will be a boring fight and Floyd will be on the go, but he will make it look easy.”
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January 22nd, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 In a recent interview, Floyd Mayweather’s adviser, Leonard Ellerbe, said that negotiations for a showdown with Shane Mosley were going good. “Obviously we’re looking at a couple dates in early May and it’s a breath of fresh air. We’re having good conversations with Richard and Judd Burstein,” he would tell FightHype’s Ben Thompson. On the surface, it does appear like things are running smoothly, however, given Mosley’s prior eagerness for a bout with Mayweather, one has to wonder why negotiations have taken this long in the first place.
“Obviously, with this being a fight of this magnitude, a megafight, these things take quite some time because there are a lot of particulars involved,” Ellerbe added. Particulars? Exactly which “particulars” are taking “quite some time” to resolve?
The purse? Doubtful! Despite his impressive resume, Shane Mosley has never made more than $5 million for a purse. Considering that Mosley holds two victories over Oscar De La Hoya, that’s a shocking revelation, but one that would explain why Mosley is eager for an opportunity at a megafight with either Mayweathr or Pacquiao. Surely money won’t be an issue in a fight that’s guaranteed to earn Mosley the biggest payday of his career.
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January 20th, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 “It’s gonna be a good fight. Part of me says Clottey’s too big and part of me says Pacquiao might be too fast, so it’s a toss up for me on that one,” stated former jr. welterweight champion Kendall Holt as he shared his thoughts on Manny Pacquiao’s upcoming WBO welterweight title defense against Joshua Clottey. Holt was originally hoping to fight on the undercard of the event, but he recently learned that he will instead be fighting Kaiser Mabuza (22-6-3, 13 KOs) on February 27th in Atlantic City. Although he thinks Pacquiao’s bout with Clottey will be competitive, he had a very different take on what would’ve happened if the megafight with Floyd Mayweather would have taken place instead on March 13th.
“I see it being competitive early and then Manny getting frustrated and Floyd putting a whoopin’ on him in the later rounds because if you see when Cotto boxed and moved and hit him with a jab… when Cotto jabbed, he hit Manny flush and when he moved a little bit, he frustrated him,” Holt remarked as he gave his take on how the fight would’ve played out. “Imagine Floyd doing that. I mean, it’s hard to see Manny, a guy that doesn’t have that much balance, a guy who jumps in with leaping punches from all over the place, landing those blows on Floyd.”
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January 18th, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 In a recent interview, Shane Mosley shared his thoughts on the controversy regarding Floyd Mayweather’s demands for Olympic-style random drug testing leading up to his highly-anticipated clash with Manny Pacquiao. “They could test me anyday they want to. I’m so clean. I’ve always been clean, till I was tricked, but it’s all good though. They could test me any day of the week. They’ve already tested me for the CBC blood test; okay whatever, let’s do it,” he stated when asked whether or not he would submit to the same type of testing if Mayweather requested it. “When they talk about steroids, they could test me right now. Matter fact they could test me when I retire. I’ve never taken steroids ever, ever. I would never knowingly take steroids ever. I don’t do that.”
Despite admitting in 2007 that he inadvertently took two designer steroids before his rematch with De La Hoya, Mosley insists that he’s never taken any steroid and would be more than willing to submit to blood testing 30 days before a bout. To paraphrase what Mosley would say in an interview with Boxinqtalk, he basically believes that the fact that Pacquiao is unwilling to do random blood tests leading up to the fight makes him look “questionable.” That being said, he did admit that he would prefer to take a test 30 days out as opposed to taking one the week of the fight. Perhaps to avoid also being named in a lawsuit, Mosley also made it clear that he was not accusing Pacquiao of using anything.
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January 12th, 2010 | by Felix Strunk
 As the topic of performance-enhancing drugs continues to dominate the headlines in several sports, world-class trainer Freddie Roach shared his thoughts on the recent revelation that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has used the painkiller Xylocaine in previous fights, a fact that he’s known for quite some time. What may come as a surprise to some people is that Roach himself has also used the painkiller in the past and doesn’t consider it to be performance-enhancing. “I’m familiar with Xylocaine because I broke my hands many times in my life and I used Xylocaine as a painkiller also. It kills the pain in your hands and it’s not legal, but it’s not a performance-enhancing drug. It just takes the feeling away,” the world-class trainer revealed in a recent interview.
In fact, Roach is so unconcerned about Mayweather’s use of Xylocaine that he wouldn’t even care if he needed to use it in a bout with his star pupil. “You know, I know Floyd has bad hands and so forth, but I’m not worried about him using Xylocaine. He can use whatever he wants. He can’t beat my guy. I don’t care. It’s okay. We’re going to pass every drug test there is because Manny Pacquiao is a clean liver and he doesn’t believe in enhancing drugs,” added the honest and soft-spoken trainer.
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