Jailed Floyd on the Money with drug campaigning

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UPDATED:

22:44 GMT, 25 June 2012

The prison cell which Floyd Mayweather finds so distasteful is turning into a sanctuary wherein he avoids being hit by large boxers falling out of the branches of the steroids tree which he has shaken so vigorously.

British heavyweight Larry Olubamiwo would have crushed Floyd Junior on landing. So would American light-heavy Antonio Tarver.

Both came crashing down last week.

On the Money: Mayweather has campaigned for more stringent drug-testing

Unfortunately for Mayweather his arch rival for the mythical title of greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world has taken no such tumble from grace. Despite Team Mayweather’s insinuations, the distinctly un-muscular Manny Pacquiao has never tested positive for anything more sinister than the after-dinner cognac he endorses.

Nevertheless, the man who calls himself Money has made a vital contribution to the sport which rewards him so generously that he has supplanted Tiger Woods as the highest paid athlete on the planet (The PacMan, by the way, is now No 2 on that list, with Tiger Woods third).

Mayweather’s vociferous campaign for
Olympic standard drug-testing to be enforced in prize-fighting has to be
given much of the credit for this recent increase in the exposure of
drugs cheats in the ring.

Since lives are violently at risk in
this, the toughest work-place in sport, Mayweather has gone some way to
redeeming himself for the domestic battery conviction which sentenced
him to three months in the slammer.

New home: This image of a typical single-inmate cell at Clark County Detention Centre where Floyd Mayweather Jr. is serving a 90-day jail term

He was making an issue of dope-testing before Lamont Peterson was discovered to have robbed Amir Khan of his world light-welterweight titles with the help not only of dodgy judging but steroid implants.

The enhanced vigilance Mayweather
demands has encouraged state athletic commissions in the US – notably
Nevada and California – to step up their anti-drug procedures.

Tarver tested positive following a
controversial draw against Lateef Kayode. He is appealing pending the
return of his B sample but of itself the case strengthens the warning to
other fighters that the risk of getting caught is becoming too great to
be worth taking.

It is
ironic that the Americans, who have been notoriously hesitant in
tackling the steroid abuse believed to be rife in major league football,
baseball and basketball, should be leading the way.

Information from across the Atlantic
regarding international trafficking in performance enhancing drugs led
the UK Anti-Doping Agency to Olubamiwo.

Cheat: Peterson (left) was on steroids when he beat Khan (above)

The Hackney heavyweight, having failed a test for EPO at the time of his January fight with Sam Sexton, has been banned for four years after confessing to the use of no fewer than 13 banned substances during six years as an amateur and professional.

With that much stuff being injected into his hind quarters it is surprising he has never won the Derby.

While apologising for pumping himself
into a potentially lethal weapon in the ring, Olubamiwo said that he had
been encouraged to offend by seeing some of his ring idols escape with
little or no punishment.

That is less likely to happen now.
When Andre Berto was caught cheating last month his lucrative re-match
with Victor Ortiz was called off and his career put in jeopardy.

Multiple
world champion Sugar Shane Mosley, a previously convicted drugs cheat,
has retired after being obliged by Mayweather to undergo rigorous
testing before they did battle.

Exposed: Antonio Tarver (left)

Mayweather won that fight comfortably and remains undefeated but his greatest victory may prove to be the one which makes the hardest old game safer for all fighters.

The knee-jerk reaction to the recent spate of failed tests has been to heap drug abuse onto boxing’s several troubles, most notably of suspect decisions of late rendered by incompetent judges, like those which robbed Pacquiao and Khan of their championships.

That is unfair. On current evidence, the sport is trying to clean up a cess-pit of chemical substances and dirty syringes.

For this, Floyd Money Mayweather deserves thanks.

/06/25/article-2164515-12F297F3000005DC-336_468x300.jpg” width=”468″ height=”300″ alt=”Credit where it's due: Mayweather has made the ring a safer place ” class=”blkBorder” />

Credit where it's due: Mayweather has made the ring a safer place

Fighting for survival

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The majority of boxing books trace the rise of hungry young fighters from the gutter of poverty to the glory of the prize-ring.

Now for something completely different.

In The Boxer’s Story* Nathan Shapow recounts how his fists carried him through the Jewish ghetto of Riga to survival of the Nazi holocaust.

Shapow was a promising amateur boxer who was fighting regularly for Latvia when World War II broke out. His ring fitness helped him withstand the deprivation and torture of the concentration camps.

The most dramatic moment came when he was ordered to lace up the gloves, climb into a make-shift ring and fight a notable German boxer.

His purse: Death if he lost, life if he won.

This is a narrative in stark and relevant contrast to today’s establishment of multi-millionaires Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao as the two highest-paid athletes in the world.

Bob Harris, a veteran sportswriter with more than 20 biographies and auto-biographies to his credit, helps Shapow tell a true story which reads more like gripping fiction.

*The Boxer’s Story (Fighting For My Life In The Nazi Camps), by Nathan Shapow (with Bob Harris), The Robson Press 18.99

London calling

There was some chauvinist wincing as female boxing was introduced for these 2012 Olympics.

Not so when Team GB’s line-up of amateur fighters – seven lads and three lassies – patiently queued to give interviews as they were kitted out in Loughborough last week.

So impressive were they that none of the journalists present doubt for a moment that members of both sexes will play their part in helping Britain realise its fourth-place target in the medals table at the London Games.