Earlier today, 8-division world champion Manny Pacquiao was in New York for a press conference to promote his highly-anticipated third fight with lightweight king Juan Manuel Marquez. During a live interview on ESPN's Sportscenter, Pacquiao revealed that he no longer has any issues whatsoever regarding Floyd Mayweather's request for random olympic-style blood and urine testing, however, they still need to iron out the details regarding the guaranteed purse and the profit split for both fighters. "The issue about everything, there's no more issue about that. Everything is fine," Pacquiao stated when asked about the issue of blood testing by Sportscenter ancho Kevin Negandhi.
The announcement may come as a surprise to many as, thus far, Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum has insisted that there were still some concerns amongst regarding the neutrality of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the national anti-doping organization that was responsible for the testing procedures in Mayweather's last bout as well as his upcoming September 17 showdown with Victor Ortiz. According to Arum, their preference was for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to handle the testing, however, ever since representatives of WADA revealed that they do not actually handle the collecting of samples, but instead rely on organizations like USADA to carry out their policies, Arum became silent on the matter. In fact, it wasn't until just now, when Pacquiao declared "there's no more issue", that fans truly got a sense that perhaps the final barrier would finally breached.
Not so fast, however, as Pacquiao also made it clear that there's still the small matter of money that needs to be discussed. "What we need to be done is the sharing, profit sharing, and also the guaranteed purse of both of us," he explained. Of course, fans will recall that prior to the issue of blood testing being revealed, it looked like both fighters had agreed to a 50/50 share of all profits. In fact, on several occassions, Arum emphatically declared that it's the one issue, which is typically a stumbling block in most mega-fights, that had absolutely been agreed upon. If that was the case, then what has changed? With recent rumors swirling that Pacquiao's finances aren't exactly up to snuff, not to mention the fact that he's giving up a percentage of his profits to both Top Rank as well as Golden Boy Promotions, will money now be the new hurdle preventing boxing's biggest from happening?
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