Money Mayweather is back at it. The best pound-for-pound fighter is on a promoting tour, hyping up his Sept. 17 HBO pay-per-view fight with Victor Ortiz.

 Both fighters hail from the Midwest. Ortiz is from Garden City, Kansas, and Mayweather was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mayweather captures the attention of the world with the cliché love-hate relationship. Liked or not, he is the biggest draw in the world.

 

 According to Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, Mayweather has generated over a half-billion dollars in his last six fights. -- even more than Manny Pacquiao. For that reason alone. HBO has thrown its marketing weight behind its “cash cow,” and rightfully so.

When Mayweather finally steps back in the ring Sept. 17, it will conclude a 16-month layoff. Since he is fighting a lefty in Ortiz, many speculate he is preparing for The Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound king, Pacquiao. also a lefty.

    The Floyd-Manny megafight has not yet come to be because of Mayweather’s demand for Olympic-style drug testing, and this is where things get difficult for the average person to comprehend.

Mayweather defended his stance on OSDT and actually called out HBO.

“All you guys (HBO) could have been made the fight happen,” said Mayweather in his kickoff press conference in New York. “All you guys (HBO) had to do is step up and say 'Both of you guys have to take the test, and lets make it happen.' ”

Before he made this statement, he praised HBO as one of the best networks in the world.

Mayweather is appearing to single handily try and clean up professional boxing.

As a professional boxer myself who has fought on HBO, I personally know that drug testing in boxing is a joke. Steroid experts claim that simple urine tests -- the only kind Pacquiao has submitted to -- are easy to pass by simply controlling your dosage as the test approaches. 

 

Olympic-style testing means fighters would be randomly tested, using both urine and blood samples, making it harder to deceive the test.

Lets not be naïve: As strict as testing becomes, there will always be those who find a way to manipulate the tests. But, right now the best testing out there is OSDT. The fact is, steroids are more common today than they were a decade ago. Steroids have impacted the sporting world in a negative way, from track-and-field all the way to cycling.

Forget Mayweather's brash, outspoken, cocky attitude and realize that he is actually in a position to clean up boxing. No other fighter has the exposure and brass to make this stand and actually force fighters to take a test. Well, none besides Pacquiao, who clearly likes the rules as they are.

 

Manny is following the rules and has never tested positive for steroids, but, can we all stop acting like steroids are not in boxing?

 Mayweather made a very valid point, comparing baseball players using steroids to boxers. Baseball abusers are hitting a ball with a bat, he noted, but boxers are hitting your face with a steroid-enhanced fist.

“If you beat me, I want you to earn it,” Mayweather said to Pacquiao. “I don’t want it to be tainted.”

  When I am in the ring I want to know my opponent has no illegal edge. My life depends on it. Who are any of us to criticize another fighter who puts his life on the line when in that squared circle? Many fighters have died in the ring under normal circumstances.

 

This debate is not about which fighter we love more -- it is about the integrity of the sport of boxing. Boxing will still be here when Pacquiao and Mayweather are long gone. For the integrity of the sport, fans and athletes deserve to know that what they are experiencing is real.

“Tis my opinion every man cheats in his own way, and he is only honest who is not discovered.”

--Susannah Centlivre