PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — MANNY Pacquiao, Joshua Clottey come face-to-face for the very first time when the two appear in the press conference Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) for their March 13 title fight at the Dallas Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Both fighters arrived in Arlington, some 20 minutes from downtown Dallas, a day before the press meet, accompanied by Top Rank Promotions chairman Bob Arum.
The event is the first of a whirlwild press tour Top Rank arranged to hype the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight showdown between two of the division’s biggest names.
After that, the two groups will plane to New York City for a similar presscon at the Madison Square Garden.
From there, formal training begins for both Pacquiao and Clottey. The challenger will stay in New York where he is already based, while the champion goes straight to Los Angeles at the Wild Card gym of trainer Freddie Roach.
The duel with Clottey came about after negotiations for Pacquiao’s supposed mega-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. fell through owing to a disagreement on the blood testing procedures to be done on both fighters.
To show that the drug testing method he’s been demanding for Pacquiao to undertake is not merely a publicity stunt, Mayweather Jr., through his adviser Leonard Ellerbe, will now require all his future opponents to take the same test.
“Whoever fights Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the future, that person will be subjected to random blood and urine testing,” Ellerbe told the Grand Rapids Press. “I don’t care who he fights, that will be the case.
“Floyd is out front, championing this effort to change the way the sport is handled in the future.”
Since his fight with Pacquiao was called off, the Mayweather camp has not announced his next opponent, although a new development arose Tuesday when Sugar Shane Mosley suddenly became available following the cancellation of his January 30 welterweight unification bout with Andre Berto of Haiti.
Upon learning that the 12-round fight set 12 days from now had been cancelled following Berto’s withdrawal in the wake of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that his his country, the Mayweather camp expressed interest on negotiating for a showdown with Mosley probably by the first week of May.
“If Shane Mosley is available, Floyd would like nothing more than to beat his ass,” said Ellerbe.
Mosley wants nothing more than a slugfest with Mayweather Jr., whether he’ll undergo drug test or not.
“They could do a test everyday if they want. There’s nothing in my veins. I’m naturally strong. I’m just strong, period. You could take a drug test any day of the week,” he said.