By Dan Rafael ESPN.com
The much-anticipated showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, tentatively scheduled for March 13 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, has collapsed, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com on Wednesday night.
“The fight’s off,” Arum, who promotes Pacquiao, said from Las Vegas.
The fight died after a last-ditch attempt at mediation between Top Rank and Golden Boy, which represents Mayweather, failed in an effort to determine the drug-testing protocol.
Pacquiao had agreed to move off his hard-line stance of refusing a blood test inside 30 days before the fight, but Mayweather wouldn’t budge off his desire for random testing all the way until the fight, Arum said. Nor would Mayweather agree to a public apology for remarks he made accusing Pacquiao of using performance-enhancing drugs, Arum said.
“I am very disappointed that we could not make this fight for the fans and I am angered because of the false accusations from Golden Boy and the Mayweather camp that I used some type of drugs, and that is why I have instructed our American lawyers to proceed with the lawsuit to clear my name,” Pacquiao said in a statement.
Arum said Pacquiao would move on and likely fight junior middleweight titlist Yuri Foreman on March 13 or March 20. Read the whole article here.