Pacquiao says he’ll need more speed to fight Mayweather

By Chris Williams: World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao thinks he’s going to need more speed if he fights Floyd Mayweather Jr. (41-0, 25 KO’s) after watching Floyd’s win last night over WBA welterweight champion Shane Mosley. In an article by Tim Dahlberg at Yahoo Sports, Pacquiao said “If we [speaking about Mayweather] fight, I’ll need more speed because Mayweather is fast.” How Pacquiao plans to get that extra speed would seem unclear.

At 31, Pacquiao is likely as fast as he’ll ever be and, if anything, he’ll only get slower in the future, not faster. Pacquiao has already moved up three weight divisions in the past two years and that alone is going to be a problem getting in the way of picking up more speed. Pacquiao is bigger, older, and probably as fast as he’s going to get.
For a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao to be set up, Pacquiao would have to agree to the Olympic style random blood testing that Mayweather wants all his opponents to agree to take.

His fight with Pacquiao fell apart earlier this year over the same issue when Pacquiao would only agree to having his blood tested 24 days before the fight. He feels that it weakens him when he has his blood tested. Mayweather, unfortunately, will likely want Pacquiao to agree to have his blood tested within this time frame. Will Pacquiao agree to have it tested near the fight?

It’s doubtful. In the same article at Yahoo, Pacquiao had this to say “For me, as long as the drug test is not done close to the match, I’ll agree because if they’ll get blood from me close to the match, it will be a disadvantage for me because I’m smaller and he’s big.”

This could be a positive sign that Pacquiao is at least open to having his blood tested, except if he doesn’t want his blood tested nearer than 24 days before the fight then this could prevent a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight from being made. Mayweather was agreeable to having the blood tests stop two weeks before the fight, but that wasn’t accepted by Pacquiao and his team. This is something that can be worked out if Pacquiao is willing to make near the 2 week period. It’s hard to imagine that Mayweather will want the tests to be nearer than that, but you never know. He could want them all the way up to the fight now that he’s beaten Mosley and is riding high in popularity with the boxing fans.