The firestorm passing through the sport of boxing right now ahead of one of the biggest events of the year is the revelation that Juan Manuel Marquez has hired Angel Heredia as his strength trainer to prepare him for the November 12th clash with Manny Pacquiao. Heredia, now going by the last name Hernandez according to 24/7 Pacquiao/Marquez, is best known for his time as a government witness during the BALCO scandal in 2005, when he admitted to supplying professional athletes with performance enhancers in return for no prison time. As disclosed early last week on FightHype, the notorious Victor Conte made it very clear that Heredia was an admitted steroid distributor who never served time due to his cooperation with the government.
Marquez will be fighting Pacquiao at a catchweight of 144 pounds for the latter's WBO Welterweight title. He will be taking a huge chance considering he is 38 years old and has taken tremendous punishment in bouts since his last fight with Pacquiao three years ago. Not to mention, the last time Marquez fought at Welterweight in 2009 against Floyd Mayweather, he looked bloated at the weight, unable to deal with the size of the naturally bigger man. Now, with the help of Heredia, he appears to have filled in a little better, perhaps replacing water weight with actual muscle. Take a look at how Marquez looked on the night he fought Mayweather as opposed to now, roughly one week prior to his bout with Pacquiao:
At the very least, it seems somewhat suspicious, so surely the Pacquiao camp would not sit idly by on the eve of one of his most important fights against an opponent that they would like the public to think is formidable despite the fact he was fighting as lightweight last year. One would think that Freddie Roach, who threatened to cancel the fight with Antonio Margarito if he didn't immediately take a test right before the bout for drinking sugar water, would focus his free time slamming Marquez and giving his own insight on Marquez's impressive physical state. Or perhaps Alex Ariza, Pacquiao's strength trainer, would lend his expertise about how he thinks Marquez could get so big so fast. You'd think Bob Arum himself would be in the process right now of immediately contacting the Nevada officials for testing, aghast at the fact that Marquez may not be clean.
Surprisingly, none of that happened.
Instead, the Pacquiao camp has decided to take the high road, basically ignoring what many other trainers or managers would voice as a legitimate concern on the eve of such an important fight. Perhaps they're doing such because due to their aggressive refusal to do any further intensive testing on themselves, a sudden change of heart would make them hypocrites and possibly stir suspicion on their part. Top Rank and Team Pacquiao always spin Mayweather's request for harder testing as a form of Mayweather expressing fear, and seeing how that helps build attention for their fights, they aren't going to abandon that notion anytime soon.
Personally, I believe that Juan Manuel Marquez should be tested based on his association with Mr. Heredia, because unlike Conte, Heredia never went to prison and has flown well under the radar to be avoided this long and has made the most of his clean slate. Besides the fact that the fight is only a week away, there's no reason to believe testing of any kind will take place for Marquez, even if the Pacquiao camp is certain of the fact. When Pacquiao fought Shane Mosley, who admitted to steroid use, Roach himself answered the question regarding testing Mosley for PEDs by saying, "We refuse to do it ourselves...we aren't going to ask for special tests." Also, opponents should know by now that if anybody wants to take an illegal substance without having to worry about additional testing, they know that Team Pacquiao isn't going to ask for one.
The irony here is that die-hard Pacquiao fans who lose their minds when anybody tells them that Pacquiao should not randomly test for any performance enhancers are now telling everybody that can listen that Marquez needs to submit to testing immediately. Regardless if Marquez were actually on steroids or not, the fight is still going to benefit from the publicity that this has created and boxing may or may not be on the receiving end of another blowout or excellent clash. We'll have to see if the action that starts in the ring stays there; the last thing we need is another controversy.
Danny Howard can be reached via e-mail (dhoward@fighthype.com), Twitter (@DBHoward126) and on Facebook.