LOS ANGELES, March 17- Manny Pacquiao received a surprise visit from drug testers prior to his Fight of the Century with Floyd Mayweather.
Pacquiao was approached unannounced by an anti-doping examiner at the house he is renting in Los Angeles where he is preparing to face Mayweather in Las Vegas on May 2.
Pacquiao has a plaster applied after giving a blood sample to the examiner
Pacquiao was visited only four days after the packed red-carpet media event in LA which formally launched the build up to the $350million richest fight of all time.
The inspector called at the house, where Pacquiao was relaxing with members of his team between work-outs with master trainer Freddie Roach at the fabled Wild Card Gym
The PacMan readily complied with tests for both blood – a process about which he had previously expressed his dislike – and urine.
“No problem,” he told the medic, with a smile.
Earlier, his promoter Bob Arum had made it clear that Pacquiao had issued a $5m challenge to Mayweather with regard to the testing, and offered to surrender that amount should he fail the examination.
Arum explained: “Manny proposed that if either of them did not pass a test, that man should pay the other $5m.
“Floyd’s team declined. Not because anybody here is afraid of the outcome but because they realised they could legally get a lot more if it happened.
“Fine with Manny. If Floyd fails we will be looking for much more compensation than $5m.”
Pacquiao has already been paid damages – reportedly in seven figures – after taking legal action for remarks made by members of the Mayweather team, when they began demanding drugs-testing, which inferred that he might have used performance enhancing drugs in the past.
Under the US procedures, which comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency standards applied for the Olympics, both boxers must submit to random testing in the weeks leading up to the fight and to another immediately after the event.
-By Daily Mail
