Nevada State Athletic Commission evaluates new blood testing program

Written By: Armando Paz

We don’t know the outcome of the Mayweather-Mosley fight yet but it seems that

Mayweather has already won one battle. The Nevada State Athletic Commission is contemplating a new blood testing program to be fully operational and implemented by

fall of this year. Keith Kizer, the Nevada commission’s executive director, said Thursday “the commission will conduct a mid-May hearing to explore the effectiveness of the Mayweather-Mosley blood- and urine-testing program conducted by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.” USADA head Travis Tygart is expected to attend the Nevada hearing and update commissioners about progress in detecting the use of performance-enhancing drugs as Human Growth Hormone and energy boosting EPO.

There are still obvious questions about how the new drug testing policies will be administered and who will pay the testing expenses? Is it really feasible to test each fighter multiple times for both blood and urine? We saw the comedy involved when Floyd Mayweather had to bring the USADA officials to his house since he needed to finish a urine sample. Having Mayweather blur out profanities while watching a basketball game against a multi million dollar basketball player for missing free throws in front of USADA officials was amusing, but it brings up an important question.

Is there a more simple system than having USADA conduct multiple random tests for blood and urine? It has been reported that both Mayweather-Mosley have been tested at least a dozen times between blood and urine. Sometimes a fighter can’t simply fill the cup requested for a urine test. In addition, the expenses of the tests also have to be ironed out. For a big mega fight like Mayweather-Mosley the $20,000 paid for the drug testing is a miniscule portion of the $30 Million purse. This may not be the case for fights that generate less revenue and promoters will be hesitant to incur the costs. If you are a fighter making a six figure payday it will be another burden after paying taxes, your promoter, your trainer etc. Moreover, there have been fighters losing belts simply because they didn’t want to pay sanctioning fees and we now will expect them to incur another fee?

Some skeptics feel that this is a ploy for Nevada to get the super fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather. It seems they are making a conscious effort to get it done by November. Bob Arum said in the past “I would agree to what NSAC decides on drug testing and not be dictated by Mayweather.” But now Arum is hinting that he may want the fight in Texas Stadium. Arum has a good relationship with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and has said "I’d rather do it before 108,000 people in a stadium than 15,000 in an arena." This creates the dilemma about promoters simply taking their fights to other states if they don’t want to abide by new random drug testing regulations. This could have been avoided if boxing was a sport regulated by one federal commission as in other sports. Nonetheless, we can’t downplay what the NSAC is reviewing.

The NSAC has sanctioned some of the biggest boxing events for decades now. It will send a big message that will reverberate around the sport. Any major promoter who takes his fights elsewhere will be open to criticism. If a medical advisory board recommends new drug testing for both NYSAC and NSAC this will almost be like a mandate for all major fights. The New York State Athletic Commission is also considering new recommendations for blood testing. As a result, if promoters and fighters avoid fights where blood testing is used than it would appear they are concealing something. Imagine not having a mega fight in the Grand MGM or Madison Square Garden simply because a fighter is not willing to prove they are clean with random blood testing. The Grand MGM is referred to as the “fight capital of the world” and MSG as the “mecca of boxing”, it would be difficult for any promoter to avoid either venue for future fights.

We don’t know the outcome of Mayweather-Mosley yet, but Mayweather has already won a fight outside of the ring. His request for random blood testing for the Pacquiao fight and the recent 24/7 episodes for Mayweather-Mosley have put the issue of performance enhancement drugs front and center. I don’t think it’s a major coincidence that two major athletic commissions are now contemplating new blood testing procedures. If anything good came out of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fall out than it would be the possibility of having a more clean sport for generations to come.