Manny Pacquiao signs on the dotted line to do drug tests for Brandon Rios fight
Manny Pacquiao signed a contract Wednesday morning to accept the kind of Olympic-style drug testing that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been demanding his opponents agree to since 2010.
Pacquiao's deal with the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association ensures that he will be randomly tested for performance enhancing drug usage prior to his Nov. 23 (Nov. 24 in China) welterweight bout with Brandon Rios at Cotai Arena in Macau, China. It is not known if Rios has signed the paperwork yet, but he has agreed to do so.
VADA's Dr. Margaret Goodman confirmed to Yahoo! Sports on Monday that she had received payment for the testing for Pacquiao and Rios, but said she hadn't received the signed contracts from the fighters. Top Rank now has Pacquiao's signed contract and is going to forward that to VADA.
The much ballyhooed fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather fell apart in a dispute over drug testing. The parties were close to a deal near Christmas 2009 for a March 2010 bout when it fell apart in a dispute over drug testing. Pacquiao has publicly said several times since that he would fully agree to the testing, but the fight never was held.
Pacquiao sued Mayweather and others for defamation relating to allegations of PED usage and the sides settled in September 2012. The settlement agreement is confidential, but Mayweather reportedly paid Pacquiao a significant figure of money to drop the suit.
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports last month, Mayweather took great pains to say he was not accusing Pacquiao of anything when he was talking about Canelo Alvarez agreeing to a drug test. Mayweather said Pacquiao would "run to a judge."
It's a shame this didn't happen three years ago, but it will give Pacquiao the opportunity to at least somewhat prove his accomplishments are the result of his fighting talents and not due to assistance from PEDs.
