So I guess the forum went mental again

[Kirkland Laing]

I've been away as well and I expected a lot more threads, posts etc. than there has been. I expected far more posting and general argument about it. I'm quite disappointed about the lack of discussion of it all actually.

I like the subforum thingy but think it's amazingly quiet considering this is a controversy for the ages as far as boxing is concerned.

I don't see the Duran thing being similar. He wasn't cheating anybody there unless you count quitting as cheating, he got where he was in the sport legally.

Here's what I think happened. Everything was going swimmingly when negotiations started in mid-November. The purse compromise had to happen but Mayweather gave ground on the weight, gloves, and the ten million a pound fine sticking points. But Manny wouldn't budge on the testing, and it was basically that one detail holding the whole thing up. I think as the days and weeks went over the Mayweathers but especially Golden Boy got more and more exasperated.

They'd had the whole history with Top Rank and with Manny in particular, the suitcase full of money, Manny going back to Top Rank and then beating a whole bunch of Golden Boy fighters. I think every time Manny beat a GBP fighter they were thinking what might have been if he'd been on their books and looked at the millions he was costing them by beating their guys and the money he was making for Arum.

Some Phillipino journalist says that the GBP chief Schaefer was telling him months ago that they thought Manny was on steroids. I think they became more and more convinced of this and when he refused random testing they thought "the fucker is taking something!" and pushed out the press statement that set this whole thing off. This definitely isn't stage-managed to generate publicity, Top Rank/Manny would never agree to get publicity by sliming Manny's reputation/earning power. You could see that it caused mass panic on the Top Rank side (he's scared of needles, he's superstitious etc.). If this was choreographed they'd have had a consistent sensible reply ready to go. And Manny would have quickly accepted random testing soon after.

It basically comes down to Manny refusing to take a test that he should have welcomed with open arms (no pun intended) to show the world he was clean and had nothing to hide. If he'd accepted it during initial negotiations it would have been a big psychological victory over Mayweather and it would have generated nothing but positive publicity for Manny, made him look really good. But this refusal to take the test, he's killing himself in the eyes of the PPV-buying public, in terms of how the general public see him and in terms of how he's seen when he retires and you've got to wonder why.

[TheBranMan]

I've been away as well and I expected a lot more threads, posts etc. than there has been. I expected far more posting and general argument about it. I'm quite disappointed about the lack of discussion of it all actually.

I like the subforum thingy but think it's amazingly quiet considering this is a controversy for the ages as far as boxing is concerned.

I don't see the Duran thing being similar. He wasn't cheating anybody there unless you count quitting as cheating, he got where he was in the sport legally.

Here's what I think happened. Everything was going swimmingly when negotiations started in mid-November. The purse compromise had to happen but Mayweather gave ground on the weight, gloves, and the ten million a pound fine sticking points. But Manny wouldn't budge on the testing, and it was basically that one detail holding the whole thing up. I think as the days and weeks went over the Mayweathers but especially Golden Boy got more and more exasperated.

They'd had the whole history with Top Rank and with Manny in particular, the suitcase full of money, Manny going back to Top Rank and then beating a whole bunch of Golden Boy fighters. I think every time Manny beat a GBP fighter they were thinking what might have been if he'd been on their books and looked at the millions he was costing them by beating their guys and the money he was making for Arum.

Some Phillipino journalist says that the GBP chief Schaefer was telling him months ago that they thought Manny was on steroids. I think they became more and more convinced of this and when he refused random testing they thought "the fucker is taking something!" and pushed out the press statement that set this whole thing off. This definitely isn't stage-managed to generate publicity, Top Rank/Manny would never agree to get publicity by sliming Manny's reputation/earning power. You could see that it caused mass panic on the Top Rank side (he's scared of needles, he's superstitious etc.). If this was choreographed they'd have had a consistent sensible reply ready to go. And Manny would have quickly accepted random testing soon after.

It basically comes down to Manny refusing to take a test that he should have welcomed with open arms (no pun intended) to show the world he was clean and had nothing to hide. If he'd accepted it during initial negotiations it would have been a big psychological victory over Mayweather and it would have generated nothing but positive publicity for Manny, made him look really good. But this refusal to take the test, he's killing himself in the eyes of the PPV-buying public, in terms of how the general public see him and in terms of how he's seen when he retires and you've got to wonder why.

Good post by both, although in reference to the Pac/Duran comparison, I think that Jaz was talking more about the element of a contradiction of character, rather than comparing their actual wrong-doings. Ethically, (IMO) cheating by utilizing banned substances during training dwarfs merely quitting out of frustration.