GL: Since the telecast last week, Bob Arum has been on the record saying that Teddy Atlas needs to issue an apology. He doesn't care who your sources are that email does not exist. He basically denied everything that you alleged. "Tell him to go get an apology from Tim Smith at the Daily News. As soon as he gets that apology then he'll get my apology. I'm really not going to talk too much about this because again, the internet to me is like a graffiti board and it justs gets more and more, I mean you got people like Mike Marley out there who are just low-life people. To me, I feel dirty every time I go near the internet. I feel like I got to take a shower or something."GL: The reason I reached out to you Teddy is to be responsible. Opinions are like assholes, everybody got one, and I'm trying to see what you have to say, but as an outsider looking in...
Teddy Atlas: (cutting in) "That's all I have to say. Let him call Tim Smith at the Daily News. Christmas day he had the same thing in his column. Let him go call him and tell the Daily News to issue an apology. As soon as he gets that apology then he can come to me."
GL: I don't imagine you're going to give up your source, because I wouldn't. But my theory on the situation, and I hope you correct me because I'm wrong, but I think Michael Moorer might be your source because he has...
TA: (cutting in) "I can tell you right now that he's not my source. Michael Moorer goes around and talks and he's worried about somebody said this, and he's worried about clearing the record and I don't know why he's worried about any of that. He called me up, oh they put a little thing out there. He said people were accusing him of being the source. If you know you're not then don't worry about it."
GL: Why would the Pacquiao people be so stupid to send out such an email?
TA: "I don't think he has any rocket scientists around his group. You ever watch 24/7? (laughs) I mean none of these guys have rocket scientists around them. That's all I can say. It seems on the surface like a very stupid thing to do, to obviously have a record of something that can be incriminating or potentially look as though there's something that leads towards something inappropriate by even asking such a question? Yeah, I agree. And that was the first thing I asked. Why would somebody be so stupid to leave a paper trail on that? But yeah, these people that are around boxing, both as writers, both on the internet, both as people who get to hang around the camp and wind up becoming people that are involved in their careers, they're not rocket scientists and it just makes me sick.
"This is the reason I want to get out of boxing, I don't want to be around it no more. Everybody wants to get in for some reason. I don't know why. They think it's glorious or something, but I wish I could get out of this sport."
GL: As somebody with a keen eye for boxing and sees boxing in a way the normal person does not, based on what you've seen in Pacquiao, do you suspect he could be on anything?
TA: "I'm not suspecting anything, because if I say that then it's going to be..
GL: (cutting in) Do you have an opinion on his recent performances?
TA: "No. I don't have any opinion. All I know is what I said and what was told to me and that he's refusing to take a blood test and there's $30M on the table. If you're going to do this thing right you have to do where there's no set up dates. If you don't do it with the Olympic style testing then with all of the advancements, just like advancements of all the different performance enhancing drugs, obviously there's all kinds of sophisticated masking agents to hide from the test. Unless those tests are not taken on predetermined dates, on dates that are random where don't have a chance to evade with these masking agents, then it's almost impossible to really verify if somebody is on it. It almost has to be taken in a random way and that's why they do it that way with Olympic testing, because if a person knows when it's going to be done they can avail themself to some of these masking agents out there.
"If one person is willing to take it, it makes you scratch your head a little bit that the other person isn't willing to take it with $30M on the table if there's nothing to hide. If somebody wants to say why even put them through that? First of all if the other person is willing to do it too, and second of all if you do, and again it's no me in any way having an opinion, I don't have an opinion on this, but I'm just saying if you want to make a case to say where the Genesis start, if you want to take that, you could point in a reasonable manner, well look in today's day and age with all of these athletes taking these things and enhancing themselves from baseball, football, basketball, everybody. Obviously there is a history and there is a precedent you can point to, whether it was Mosley, whether it was Vargas, whether it was, somebody just told me Shannon Briggs tested positive, whether it was James Toney.
"James Toney in the Ruiz fight. And you know a lot of people forget about that, but Freddie Roach was his trainer. Freddie Roach is a clean guy and is a guy I wouldn't suspect anything bad of, but how do you know what a guy is doing? You're not with him 24/7. The question that should have been asked to Freddie during his interview, because they asked him do you know he's clean and he said yes, he knows he's clean. The fair question, but not in any way saying that Freddie is part of something or partnered with something improper, but the responsible follow up question would have been, and the same holds true if Mayweather were on that side, it would be a hard question to Mayweather, but it would have been the proper question.
"Freddie you say you know he's clean, but you probably said the same thing or would have said the same thing if you were asked that question going into the Ruiz fight. We're sure that you know he wasn't on something, but it turned out he was. He turned out that he took a test after the fight and the the title was stripped from him and it was given back to Ruiz because he was dirty. It's impossible for Freddie or any trainer for sure to say that they know because they're not with the guy when he leaves the gym and goes with his strength coach or whoever the hell he goes with. It's reasonable to say that with this behavior being commonplace in sports and it has been shown to show itself in boxing. Not as much as the other sports, but it's been there, then you would say that a guy who has moved up so many weight classes, retained his speed, retained his strength and you never saw him in a fight where anybody said he looked a lot smaller.
"And again, I'm not pointing any fingers, but I think it's reasonable to say that in today's day and age with these things being out there and guy moving up that many weight classes and has had success becuase he's a good fighter and he's got a good trainer. But he's retained his speed and strength without any kind of speed bump at all or loss of anything, you could say okay, in today's day and age you want to be sure. Maybe they got a report that tipped them off or whatever, again that's where you could see it coming from and that's within a reasonable realm. If you consider yourself an honest reasonable person you could understand somebody saying that, it doesn't mean it's true. But if Floyd is willing and he's made some concessions because he's no prince, but at some point if you are going to test for it, you have to do it in a realm where the test can be relied on.
GL: I understand that, but playing devil's advocate, isn't his request to Pacquiao insulting and doesn't it insinuate that he believes Pacquiao is on something for simply asking for additional testing not required by the Nevada Commission?
TA: "Just because it's not normal procedure on Nevada's freaking rules doesn't mean it shouldn't be normal procedure. It's a case where they can't afford to do the test and the state hasn't put that into law, because, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there.
GL: Mayweather making such a request is unheard of.
TA: "It's not unheard of if it's out there and fighters are turning up positive just like other athletes. When you have a guy who when he turned pro he was 106 pound, he moved up to 112, he moved up to 118.
GL: That's kind of unfair, because he was a teenager.
TA: "But then he gets to a point where he's in his twenties and he's moving up four or five weight classes...
GL: (trying to cut in)
TA: "Listen if you're going to call me I'm going to talk. Maybe he's completely honest and everything is fine. But you can't line Mayweather up and want to shoot him in the firing squad because he asked for a test. Maybe it's a test that in today's day and age that should be there. Maybe it's irresponsible that the test is not there. He's a guy who puts himself on the line in that ring. Doesn't he have the right to make sure that the guy is on something that could give him an unfair edge and could hurt him? He's not out of line to ask for that if he has a real concern that that's a possibility.
GL: Based on what. When Pacquiao broke through against Barrera, he beat the hell out of Barrera until the corner threw in the towel...
TA: "Floyd is willing to take the same test. When you say based on what, based on the times, based on what we just talked about. Based on the fact that the guy has stepped up a lot of weight classes.
GL: So has Floyd.
TA: "Not quite to the extent that this guy has, to where you could say that his body in some way looks, for a guy who has such a small structure to almost look like he belongs in that weight class. He's grown in size in maybe a disappropriate way, and I'm not saying that's the case. You can make an arguement on both sides, Manny could be insulted and you could also make the arguement that the other guy has the right to ask."
Source: boxingtalk.com
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