Juan Manuel Marquez vs Timothy Bradley At Risk

Although Juan Manuel Marquez and Timothy Bradley have signed contracts to fight each other on October 12 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, word is that the fight might be at risk according to the new boxing podcast in Spanish Boxeo Tijuana Radio which is co-hosted by our Editor in Cheif , Felipe Leon.

Here’s the issue, Bradley wants random blood testing for the bout. He is requesting this because he believes Marquez is on something due to the hard punch that knocked out Manny Pacquaio and because Marquez works with one of the most notorious strength and conditioning coaches in the sport, Angel Guillermo “Memo” Heredia. Heredia admitted in court he supplied many athletes involved in the BALCO case with performance-enhancing drugs and has done videos that essentially document how athletes can hide their PED usage.

Marquez of course has no problem doing the random testing and has agreed.

However, the issue continues over which agency would actually do the testing. The Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), the commission under which the bout will be governed, doesn’t do random blood testing for performance enhancing drugs so the fighters would have to turn to an outside agency.

After failing to come to an agreement on which agency to use, it was decided that both the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) would test the fighters.

Promoter Bob Arum doesn’t want to use the independent testing agencies and wants to re-write the language of the contract and turn the responsibility for testing back to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Now Marquez wants to add a clause to the contract that states Bradley won’t weigh more than ten pounds over the welterweight limit on fight night and of course Bradley is refusing.

I could understand why Bradley is suspicious of Marquez, considering Heredia in his corner, but Marquez has never tested positive and never has had any problems. There’s a lot of money involved and I am confident the fight will happen. We just have to wait.