Articles of 2009

ROBERTO DURAN-The Fourth Crown

Published

16 years ago

February 24, 2009

“The eyes of Roberto Duran. There’s a sinister look there…. even now.”
~ Al Bernstein, 1989

On the evening of February 24, 1989 a thirty-seven year old Panamanian has-been stood in a boxing ring in Atlantic City. A snowstorm raged outside but the crowd that filed into the Convention Center was undeterred –they came like believers to Lourdes, looking for a miracle. This was the boxer’s 92nd bout in 21 years as a professional. The touched-up beard and glistening hair recalled Charles Manson. His size and stature did as well –standing only 5’7 with his shoes on. In the opposite corner the powerfully built WBC middleweight Champion Iran Barkley stalked about, his features half-hidden under a hood.

Six years earlier, the man with the black beard had brutalized Barkley’s friend and fellow champion Davey Moore en route to an eighth round TKO. Moore died some time later in a freak accident and Barkley was dedicating this bout to his memory. For Iran, this was a revenge fight.

The Panamanian wasn’t worried: “that’s not my problem, that’s his problem.” Yet problems abounded. Iran wasn’t a 3-1 favorite by accident. He had bombs on both fists and stood over six feet. He was the kind of middleweight who looked like a light heavyweight with a rigged scale.

The flag of Panama waved up in the cheap seats as both men walked to ring center for the pre-fight instructions. Duran was eye-level with Barkley’s chest. Within moments, the timekeeper sounded the bell and round one began. The sold-out crowd roared and a familiar chant echoed off the walls as the boxers converged for battle: “Dooo-ran! Dooo-ran! Dooo-ran!”

Odyssey

Roberto Duran Sameniego began as just another dirty face in the sprawling barrios of Central America. He was a shoeshine boy who started boxing for coins at the age of eight. Like many before and after him, the rumblings of an empty stomach produced a great fighter. The kid fought as if he were possessed by thirteen devils, eventually growing into the lightweight division. He was barely out of his teenage years when he dominated the WBA champion Ken Buchanan, ending the fight with a shot that launched Buchanan’s testicles into his esophagus.

Duran had by this time come under the wings of two old Jewish corner men, relics from the golden age of boxing. In 1950, Ray Arcel was in Ezzard Charles’ corner when he handed Joe Louis his first defeat since Schmeling. Freddie Brown was the cut man in Rocky Marciano’s corner who plugged up the gaping wound on the champion’s nose long enough for him to overcome Charles four years later. They trained 26 champions between them since the 1920s and together they took the raw material that was Duran and unleashed one of the greatest lightweights in history. Brown streamlined the heavy-handed aggression and added finesse while Arcel taught him to think in the ring. Neither trainer tampered with the source, resolving never to touch the fire that burned in Duran.

A commentator later described his style as “back alley baroque” but it was more than that. Brown once asserted that that in all of his decades of training fighters, only Henry Armstrong was close to Duran.

The Hands of Stone’s reign of terror in his natural division began with Buchanan writhing on the canvas at his feet and ended with Esteban De Jesus in a similar posture in 1978. Having unified the lightweight title, Duran and his ancient corner targeted larger prey and greater glory.

Duran’s invasion of the welterweight division commenced with a challenge to former welterweight champion Carlos Palomino, a solid and proven fighter. Duran took nine of ten rounds. One year and three wins later, Duran stepped into the ring against one of the premier welterweights in history –the undefeated Sugar Ray Leonard. A ferocious Duran, on the books as a 9-5 underdog, beat Leonard over 15 grueling rounds. Leonard did not disappoint, erasing forever any notion that his warrior credentials were suspect. When asked after the fight if Leonard was the toughest of his 70 opponents to date, an exhausted Duran hesitated for a moment and then conceded: “si.” It is widely considered his peak performance, a perfect blend of skill and aggression. But it was more than that. It was an historical anomaly. To find a natural lightweight defeating a natural welterweight champion before this, you’d have to go back to 1906 when Joe Gans defeated Mike “Twin” Sullivan –and Sullivan was no Leonard.

Roberto Duran became a living legend.

Then came the fall. Five months later, Duran quit in the rematch against Leonard. “No quiero pelear con el payaso” (“I do not want to fight with this clown”) were the words he uttered to the referee. Howard Cosell bowdlerized it and the phrase “no mas” entered the American lexicon forever. Freddie Brown and Ray Arcel walked away in disbelief. Overnight, the proud name of Roberto Duran became a punch line for comedians on late night television. He hid out in Miami, refusing to go home to Panama where passions ran deep.

Roberto Duran became a pariah.

The real drama was only beginning. Duran began challenging larger fighters at precisely the time that the powers he commanded in his youth were waning. Age is a thief, and Duran’s passion was among the victims. At times he seemed to forget who he was, or he didn’t care. The Leonard rematch was only the first of his humiliations. More would follow: the Kirkland Laing and Pat Lawlor fights among them. His would be the walk-out bout. He’d struggle against fighters who couldn’t carry his spit bucket in his prime. Duran would be reduced to fighting for coins again, often badly conditioned enough to look as if his name were Rotundo Duran.

But then he would rise from his own ashes like a phoenix. The first resurrection brought him a third title, once again from an undefeated bigger, younger, and faster champion in junior middleweight Davey Moore. Five months later, he faced one of history’s greatest middleweight champions -Brockton's own Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Only a loco lightweight would challenge middleweights, but this one became the only one of Hagler’s title challengers to go 15 rounds. Unlike Leonard who waited until Hagler was slowed down enough and even then insisted on 12 rounds, Duran fought him in the pocket for 15 rounds when Hagler was near- prime. At the last bell, Duran stood in defiance, scowling with those Manson lamps. It was a glorious defeat.

Duran was offered $500,000 upfront to fight Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns. Duran, foolishly believing that Hearns was a “chicken” after watching his fight with Leonard, trained like a hedonist at Woodstock. He spent two rounds snarling and missing, and after Hearns connected in the second round with a right hook, Duran said, he “shook all the alcohol, all the women, and to the mat I went!” He was carried out on his shield –it would remain the first and last time in 119 fights that Duran finished a fight horizontal.

Over the next four years, Duran fought only one top contender in Robbie Sims, and he lost by a split decision. When Duran and Barkley converged like David and Goliath on that snowy evening in 1989, Duran was 25 pounds and a decade past his peak. He had never fought anything the size of Barkley except perhaps for that horse he was said to have knocked out. Meanwhile, Barkley had just vanquished Duran’s conqueror in Hearns with two right hands, the second landing as Hearns was in the act of falling. “I’m gonna finish off these legends,” declared the former Bronx gangbanger. Unlike either Duran or the horse, the WBC middleweight champion was in his prime at 28 years old.

Kleos Aphthiton

Iran Barkley began his first title defense with a demonstration of what his strategy would be. Any stogie-chewing, bent-nosed chief second would have grunted his approval: work behind a varying jab, pound the body, feint, give angles, get physical, and set a torrid pace. The older, smaller Duran had no advantages except for a good memory. His only chance for victory was to fight Barkley in the eye of the storm, counterpunch, angle out, and capitalize on any mistakes that were made. Duran didn’t have to wait long for a mistake. Barkley threw a jab with 10 seconds left in the first round and left it hanging out there. Duran slipped it and came over with an overhand right that caught Iran on the side of his head. Barkley’s legs sagged. The crowd went berserk. Commentator Gil Clancy, who was in Ken Buchanan’s corner on the night that Duran stopped him in 1972 hollered, “Barkley is hoit! He-is-hoit, no question about that! We mentioned the fact Duran has not shown punching power as a middleweight… there it was!”

The struggle quickly became epic. Every round, Barkley made a serious investment in body punching, bending at the knees and cranking left hooks that seemed to come out of Duran’s back. It didn’t slow him down. In round four, Barkley pushed Duran into the ropes like a rag doll and Duran bounced off with a right-left-right-left combination that stunned the champion. Later, Duran grazed Barkley with a left hook in close, fall-stepping to his right as he did, then twisting back with a right hand. This was a mirror image of a move that Rocky Marciano did against Ezzard Charles in the eighth round of their second fight. Somewhere, the ghost of Freddie Brown was nodding in approval. Nevertheless, Duran was having difficulty with the size and strength of this champion because although he was standing on a dime and making Iran miss, anytime the larger man connected anywhere, Duran was knocked sideways.

Round seven was a showcase of Duran’s genius. He slipped six punches in a row before stunning Barkley again with a right. Moments later Barkley bent his knees and landed two short left hooks. A dazed Duran started to tilt and fell into a clinch, but resumed fighting a moment later as if his chin matched his hands of stone. At the end of the round, Duran stood ring center and stared at the champion as if to say “mas”. Ray Arcel was almost 90 years old when he watched this bout in his Manhattan apartment: “I just sat there…and I mean, I was laughing,” he told Ronald K. Fried in “Corner Men”, “this is my baby.”

In the next round, Barkley went low and came up with another short left hook that snuck in behind Duran’s guard. Barkley never threw a better one. Duran’s eyes rolled around in his head like a Looney Tune, and he stumbled. The black light was beckoning.

In rough fights, including ones like this where the momentum swings like a pendulum, the expectation is that young lions will outlast old lions. Barkley’s corner operated with that expectation. In the eighth round, they thought that their strategic investments against this aging ex-champion –the pressure, the pace –were beginning to pay dividends; and that left hook looked like a cleanup.

They were wrong. The phoenix saw the ashes at his feet, and something primal rose again in him shaking a stone fist at past failures, at age, at giants, at any and all who doubt Duran.

And he came roaring back. In the eleventh, Duran exploded a left-right-left-right combination that left Barkley sprawled on the canvas like an advertisement. In the last round, it was David who was stalking Goliath, and Goliath’s eye (like Leonard’s, Moore’s, and Hagler’s) was decorated with an ugly hematoma. Duran was triumphant. The mythical fourth crown was his. And there wasn’t a scratch on his face.

The storied history of twentieth century boxing strains to find something comparable to Duran’s victory over Leonard, but it has no precedent for this. Aging, natural lightweights don’t beat full blown middleweights. It simply doesn’t happen. And yet it did. In a last act of defiance, Duran gave the finger to history, to the laws of physics, and to Father Time. It has been twenty years since the Panamanian seized his fourth crown. The days of blood and shame and redemption and glory are long gone, and at 57, he is as round as he is happy. But don’t let the twinkle in the eyes of Roberto Duran fool you… he just might be the greatest fighter we’ve experienced in a half century.

Gregory Toledo is a freelance writer from Boston, MA who has contributed to various publications; he is also the author of The Hanging of Old Brown: A Story of Slaves, Statesmen, and Redemption and can be contacted at: scalinatella@hotmail.com.

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Articles of 2009

UFC 108 Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva

Published

15 years ago

December 31, 2009

David A. Avila

Former champion Rashad Evans meets Brazil’s venerable Thiago Silva in a non-title belt that can lead to a return match with the current champ, but first things first.

Evans (15-1-1) and Silva (14-1) meet in Ultimate Fighting Championship 108 in a light heavyweight bout on Saturday Jan. 2, at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. A win by either fighter could result in a world title bid. The fight card is being shown on pay-per-view television.

Events can change quickly in the Octagon and anybody can beat anybody in the 205-pound weight division. Just ask Silva or Evans.

Silva and Evans are both experienced and can vouch firsthand about the capriciousness of fighting in MMA and especially as a light heavyweight. On one day this man can beat that man and on another day, that man can beat this man. It can make you absolutely daffy.

Evans, 30, is the former UFC light heavyweight world champion who only defended his title on one occasion and lost by vicious knockout to current champion Lyoto Machida of Brazil. It’s the only defeat on his record.

Silva, 27, is a well-rounded MMA fighter from Sao Paolo, Brazil who is versed in jujitsu, Muy Thai and boxing. He can end a fight quickly in a choke hold just as easily as with a kick or a punch. His only loss came to who else: Machida.

Evans and Silva know a win can push open the door to a rematch with current UFC light heavyweight champion Machida.

“A win against Rashad would put me in the track against Lyoto,” said Silva, in a telephone conference call. “That's what – what I want to do.”

When Silva fought Machida the two Brazilians were both undefeated and feared in the MMA world. The fight took place in Las Vegas and with one second remaining in the first round a perfectly timed punch knocked Silva unconscious.

“I was humbled big time, man,” says Silva who fought Machida in January 2009. “I learned a lot from that fight. I think I can correct the mistakes from that fight, not overlooking anything else right now, but just I want to get the chance to fight him again.”

For Evans it was a different circumstance. The upstate New Yorker held the UFC title and was defending it after stopping then champion Forrest Griffin by knockout. Still, many felt Machida was far too technically versed. Evans was stopped brutally in the second round.

“I've made it a point to not – to not get distracted on what I want to do, because you know Thiago (Silva) is a very hungry fighter,” said Evans who has not fought since losing the title to Machida last May. “My focus is just on Thiago so much. You know I don't want to overlook him, you know, not even a little bit.”

Dana White, president of UFC, says the winner of this fight could conceivably fight Machida in the near future. Evans and especially Silva are motivated by the open window.

“I learned a lot from that fight. I think I can correct the mistakes from that fight,” says Silva. “Not overlooking anything else right now, but I just want to get the chance to fight him again.”

What a prize. The winner gets to face the man who beat him: Machida.

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Articles of 2009

No One Is Leaving This Stage Of Negotiations Looking GOLDEN

Published

15 years ago

December 30, 2009

George Kimball

Early in his political career, the young Lyndon Baines Johnson served as a congressional aide to Rep. Richard Kleberg, the wealthy owner of the King Ranch who was elected to seven consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, at least in part because he often ran unopposed.

One year an upstart rival politician we'll call Joe Bob had the temerity to challenge Kleberg in the Democratic primary, resulting in the convocation of the Texas congressman's staff to plot an election strategy. Several ideas were kicked around before Kleberg himself came up with a brainstorm.

“Why don't we start a rumor that he [copulates with] sheep?” proposed the politician.

This was a bit over the top, even for Lyndon Johnson. The future president leapt to his feet and said, incredulously, “But you know Joe Bob don't [copulate with] sheep!”

“Yeah,” replied the congressman, “but watch what happens when the son of a bitch has to stand up and deny it!”

******

Events of the past week or two have seen the Floyd Mayweather camp adopt a similar tactic with regard to Manny Pacquiao. But if introducing what would appear to be a red-herring issue — the debate over drug-testing procedures — to the negotiating process was intended as a negotiating ploy, it would appear for the moment to have backfired. The idea might have been to force Pacquiao to go on the defensive, but Pac-Man instead responded with his stock in trade, the counterpunch — in this case the multi-million dollar defamation suit he filed against the Mayweathers, pere et fils,, with the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

In boxing even more than in life, you never say never, but you'd have to say that Pacquiao-Mayweather is a dead issue right now, at least in its March 13 incarnation. Bob Arum says Pacquiao is prepared to move along to another opponent, and Mayweather is supposedly looking at Matthew Hatton in England.

We'll believe that when we see it, for at least three reasons: (1) There would hardly seem to be enough money in that one to make it worth Floyd's time, (2) He's going to have to put so much into preparing a defense to this lawsuit that he mightn't have time to train and (3) He'd get a better workout if he stayed in Vegas and boxed one of Uncle Roger's girl opponents.

*****

Colleagues on this site have already done a good job of dissecting this process. Ron Borges is absolutely correct in noting that in the midst of all the posturing that's gone on, you'd be a fool to accept at face value anything coming out of any of the parties' mouths. And Frank Lotierzo is spot on in noting that if you had absolutely no desire to actually get in the ring with Manny Pacquiao but were still looking to save face, you'd do pretty much exactly what Mayweather has done. Which is to say, talk tough while you get others to run interference with a series of actions seemingly calculated to ensure that the fight doesn't come off.

But left almost unscathed in all of this heretofore has been the convoluted role played by Golden Boy — by CEO Richard Schaefer, by the company's namesake Oscar the Blogger, GBP's subsidiary enterprise, The Ring, and at least a few of the lap-dogs and lackeys whose favor GPB has cultivated elsewhere in the media.

In late March of 2008, Shane Mosley and Zab Judah appeared at a New York press conference to announce a fight between them in Las Vegas two months later. As it happened, the BALCO trial had gotten underway out in California that week. That day I sat with Judah and his attorney Richard Shinefield as they explained that they intended to ask that both boxers agree to blood testing in the runup to the fight. Citing Mosley's history with BALCO and its products The Cream and The Clear (which Shane claimed Victor Conte had slipped him when he wasn't looking), Shinefield and Zab, noting that Nevada drug tests were limited to urinalysis, proposed that the supplementary tests be administered by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Want to know what Richard Schaefer's response to that was?

“Whatever tests [the NSAC] wants them to take, we will submit to, but we are not going to do other tests than the Nevada commission requires,” said Schaefer. “The fact is, Shane is not a cheater and he does not need to be treated like one.”

But the fact is that Mosley had a confirmed history as a cheater. Manny Pacquiao does not. Yet in the absence of a scintilla of evidence or probable cause, less than two years later Schaefer was howling that the very integrity of the sport would be at risk unless Pacquiao submitted to precisely the same sort of testing he had rejected for Mosley.

And you thought it was Arum who was famous for saying “Yeah, but yesterday I was lying. Today I'm telling the truth!”

Schaefer, by the way, defended his 180-degree turnabout by saying he is now better educated on the issue. He couldn't resist aiming a harpoon at the media by adding that many sportswriters “don't know the difference between blood and urine testing.”

Don't know how to break this to you, Richard, but sportswriters, who have had to deal with this stuff for the past twenty years, probably know more about drug-testing procedures than any other group you could name.

*****

Now, the reasonable assumption would be that by assuming the role of the point man in this unseemly mess, Schaefer was insulating his boss (De La Hoya) and his fighter (PBF) by keeping their fingerprints off it while he made a fool of himself publicly conducting this snide little campaign.

And yes, Money would have stayed out of the line of fire had not a two-month old, expletive-filled rant in which he described the Philippines as the world's foremost producer of performance-enhancing drugs not exploded on the internet at the most inopportune moment. That the lawsuit was filed less than 24 hours after “Floyd Meets the Rugged Man” overtook the Tiger Watch probably wasn't a coincidence.

And we're assuming that this Dan Petrocelli, the lawyer who filed Pacquiao's suit, knows what he's doing, because if there were an even one-zillionth chance that somebody could credibly link Manny to PEDs, then it was a pretty dumb thing to do. You could ask Roger Clemens about that. Clemens' transformation from Hall of Famer-in-waiting to nationwide laughingstock didn't come from the Mitchell Report. It came from his wrongheaded decision to file a lawsuit against Brian McNamee, which in turn threw everything open to the discovery process.

*****

De La Hoya, in the meantime, was playing both sides of the fence. He let Schaefer play Bad Cop as he distanced himself from the negotiating process, but simultaneously was sniping away at Pacquiao from his First Amendment-protected perch as a Ring.com blogger.

“If Pacquiao, the toughest guy on the planet, is afraid of needles and having a few tablespoons of blood drawn from his system, then something is wrong… I'm just saying that now people have to wonder: 'Why doesn't he want to do this?' Why is [blood testing] such a big deal?' wrote Oscar the Blogger. “A lot of eyebrows have been raised. And this is not good.”

Ask yourself this: Exactly what caused those eyebrows to be raised, other than the innuendo coming straight from Oscar's company?

Providing De La Hoya with a forum from which to dispense propaganda only begins to illustrate the hopelessly compromised position from which The Ring continues to operate. They might as well give Schaefer a column, too, while they're at it.

Nearly seven months have elapsed since we last visited the Ring/Golden Boy relationship, and at the risk of winding Nigel up, it might be useful here to note that in the midst of last June's discourse, The Ring's editor offered a laundry list of the magazine's covers since the De La Hoya takeover as a demonstration of Golden Boy's restraint.

After listing them, Nigel Collins wrote “that's 28 covers over the course of 21 issues, of which Top Rank had 12 fighters, as opposed to eight for Golden Boy and eight for other promotional entities. Obviously, The Ring has shown no bias to Golden Boy when it comes to magazine covers.”

It had never even been suggested that the conflict of interest extended to the magazine playing favorites in choosing its cover subjects, but since Nigel brought it up it is probably worth noting now that of those eight covers given over to “other promotional entities,” two were of David Haye, whose promoter was properly listed as “Hayemaker,” but who had also signed a promotional deal with Golden Boy in May of 2008. (Just last month GBP issued a release in De La Hoya's name in which it described itself as “Golden Boy Promotions, the United States promoter of World Boxing Association Heavyweight World Champion David Haye.”)

And even more to the point, in four other issues Nigel Collins offered in evidence the cover subject was Floyd Mayweather (Independent), although what has transpired with regard to the Pacquiao fight doesn't make Money look very independent at all, does it?

We don't regularly keep track of these things, but in making sure we didn't misquote Oscar's Blog we also came across a representation of the January 2010 issue on The Ring's website. The picture on the cover of the Bible of Boxing is of the Golden Boy himself, and the cover story “De La Hoya: The Retirement Interview.”

Wow! Now there's a hot topic for crusading journalists.

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Articles of 2009

Paul Malignaggi Explains Why He Thinks Manny Has Used PEDs

Published

15 years ago

December 30, 2009

Michael Woods

In theory and in practice I am vehemently opposed to people tossing out unfounded allegations against someone. Supply evidence, then we can talk. But saying someone is using steroids, or EPO, or HGH, based on a theory, or your gut instinct….I have to consider, what if the allegation were thrown at me, and I was 100% innocent. I'd be mightily irked. And so too would you be.

Manny Pacquaio has been hammered from all sides with folks insinuating and coming right out with the contention that they think he's been cheating, that he's been using illegal performance enhancers to give him an edge in competition. Floyd Mayweather Sr, Paulie Malignaggi, Miguel Cotto and Kermit Cintron have either accused Manny, or insinuated that he's been using PEDs. One has to wonder, where's all this smoke coming from? Is it possible that there's fire lurking? That these folks aren't just lobbing unfounded barbs at Manny, that their allegations and hints aren't just sour grapes, or posturing, or a ploy to lure Manny into a fight?

By and large, there hasn't been much in the way of coverage from the standpoint of: what if Manny is using PEDs, or was using PEDs? I think that is rightly so; I'd be more comfortable if none of us trafficked in the innuendo and speculation, and worked within the realm of evidence, and facts. But it's out there, and a topic of conversation and speculation. Perhaps it's a symptom and sign of the times we live in…

TSS reached out to Malignaggi, just off a solid win in his Dec. 12 rematch with Juan Diaz. The Brooklyn-based pugilist has never been shy about speaking his peace (I picture him exiting his mom's womb and barking at the labor and delivery crew to get the room cleaned up, stat!), and he shared with TSS what he bases his allegations, which he's careful to label opinion, upon.

First off, Malignaggi is of the belief that if the Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations are at a fatal impasse, Yuri Foreman, and not he, will get the coveted date with Pacquiao. Malignaggi has been mentioned as stand-in for Mayweather.

He started off by insisting that ” I have nothing against Pacquiao” but then went from mellow to madman in a 30 second span.

First off, the boxer wonders why Team Pacquiao isn't going after big-time newspapers, with deep pocketed owners, for libel, for insinuating that Pacquiao is drug cheat.

“If Pacquiao's so sue happy, why not sue the New York Daily News?” he asked. “Maybe they know the steroid allegations are true.”

By and large, Malignaggi thinks it is impossible, utterly impossible, for a boxer to put on 15 or more pounds between March 15, 2008, when he fought Juan Manuel Marquez and weighed 129 pounds at the weigh in, and Nov. 14, 2009 when he fought Miguel Cotto and was 144 pounds at the weigh in, and more on fight night.

“It's not natural looking,” Malignaggi said. But, I countered, what if Manny's supremely blessed, that unlike some other fighters who go up in weight, and look a bit bloated, and lack definition, he's just a special creature?

“He's not supremely blessed,” Maliganngi said. “I know body builders. They can't put on 17 or whatever pounds of muscle in a year. It's not doable, in my opinion. These are my speculations, my opinions based on certain factual evidence. Does his weight gain look normal to you? And his head looks like it has blown up in size, too.”

I offered to Malignaggi that perhaps we should be attacking the system, if we believe it to be lacking, rather than the individual.

“We can blame the system a little bit, but if you were Manny, wouldn't you want to leave no doubt? Or speculation?” said Maliganngi, who believes that by not agreeing to the terms set forth by Team Mayweather, and opposing a blood test within 30 days of the bout, Pacquaio appears guilty.

Pacquiao has agreed to take 3 blood tests: the first during the week of the kickoff news conference in early January, the second random test to be conducted no later than 30 days before the fight, and a final test after the bout. A video making the rounds from the HBO 24/7 series shows Pacquiao submitting to a blood test two or three weeks before he was due to fight Ricky Hatton, and that has cast doubt on Team Pacquiao's stance that Manny is disinclined to get a blood test too close to a bout, for fear he may be weakened. Originally, it was reported in error that that test was taken 14 days before the Hatton bout, but subsequent reports pegged the test as being taken 24 days before the scrap. Malignaggi feels Pacquiao has been caught lying, that the report from Team Pacquiao that he “has difficulty taking blood” is a cover story. “Why is he effing lying?” Malignaggi said, heatedly.

The New Yorker doesn't believe too many fighters in the lighter weight classes are using PEDs, but thinks usage isn't uncommon in the heavyweight division. “That's hard to do and make weight,” he said.

The question is asked of Malignaggi: why does the issue make him so steamed?

“I don't like cheaters,” he said. “This is not baseball. You're not just hitting home runs. You have to worry about peoples' lives. Miguel Cotto in my opinion has been beaten by two cheaters. Manny if he's cheating is taking away from guys who are doing things the right way. His team is reneging on their words.”

And what if you're wrong, Malignaggi? What if Manny is clean, and you are hurting his rep with these allegations?

“I bet everything I own that I'm not,” he said. “But we'll never find out. Hey, I would take the test in a heartbeat. I would want people to know I'm clean. He wants to leave doubts!?? His entire legacy is being questioned, he's willing to hurt his legacy and leave $40 million on the table?”

Maliganngi, after reminding TSS that he was correct in predicting he'd be gamed by judges in the first fight with Diaz, insisted that he isn't singling out Pacquiao for a personal vendetta. “”I've never had anything against him. But that's enough now. I call it like I see it.”

What about those who'd say he's just trying to anger Pacquiao, to lure him into a fight?

“No. I expected he'd take the random tests to get this fight. No way I thought he'd throw away everything. That blew me away. It was cool to have my name mentioned.”

Malignaggi thinks the boxing media has dropped the ball, and not exercised due diligence in examining the possibility that Manny has used PEDs.

“I understand most people like Manny, and not Floyd. Just cause that's the case doesn't mean Manny might not be cheating. It's nothing to do with him personally. But I call a spade a spade. Too many people avoid the possibilities because Manny's a likable person. He's got that front, his country loves him. That front works like crazy. Floyd plays the bad guy, but he's natural. Just don't downplay the fact that Manny might be cheating. You have to open your eyes and at least be willing to look at it. This is bigger than me. The fact that the fight is not being made, you have to question the integrity of Pacquiao.”

Malignaggi then offered an analogy to the Manny-refusing-to-be-subjected-to multiple-random-drug-tests prior-to-a-fight-with-Mayweather deal. “It reminds me of the drunk guy who's pulled over at 3 AM. He has a field sobriety test, the cop knows he's drunk, he looks and acts drunk. But he refuses a breathalyzer test. That don't mean the cop don't haul him to the police station.”

I reiterate…I don't think anyone should be casting aspersions based on circumstantial evidence. But with so many people ganging up on Manny, I think fight fans are owed some details on why people are accusing Pacman of using PEDs.

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