Manny Pacquiao’s camp has greater worries than the lingering sting of the Filipino welterweight’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas Saturday, and it could come in the form of prosecution for perjury.
By inaccurately completing a pre-fight medical questionnaire — when Pacquiao’s camp checked the “No” box for a question about whether he had a shoulder injury — the boxer’s inner circle has sparked an investigation by the Nevada authorities, according to sources.
“Disclosure is a big thing for us, and honesty,” Cisco Aguilar, the Nevada Athletic Commission chairman told the Daily News Monday. “The commission at some point will have to discuss (Pacquiao’s medical questionnaire). I’ve got to run through the process with the (Nevada) Attorney General (Adam Laxalt). But they do sign that document under the penalty of perjury.”
In addition to possible perjury charges looming, if a lawyer for Pacquiao signed the medical questionnaire, the lawyer might have a license issue. And there is case law that supports a possible class-action suit, where ticket holders could argue they didn’t get what was promised – had Pacquiao been 100% healthy, it could have been a more entertaining fight.
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To make matters worse, Pacquiao and his promoter, Top Rank, released a statement Monday that said his advisers notified the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency — which oversaw drug testing for the fight — of Pacquiao’s right shoulder injury well before the May 2 bout “during training.” The statement also said USADA “confirmed in writing that the proposed treatments, if used, were completely allowed.”
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Sources told The News, however, that Pacquiao’s camp never informed USADA of the boxer’s shoulder injury, and that the two calls his camp made to USADA prior to the fight were inquiries into whether certain substances Pacquiao was considering using were prohibited or not.
Pacquiao’s statement also said that the medication “approved for fight night was a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (Toradol).” Aguilar said Pacquiao’s team made a request hours before the fight for a lidocaine shot and anti-inflammatories.
“We go through the weigh-in (May 1), we get to the fight, a little after 6 p.m. (local time), we were made aware Pacquiao potentially had a shoulder injury. Then after we were made aware about the injury, a request came to inject his shoulder with lidocaine and a couple anti-inflammatories,” said Aguilar. “We gathered our doctor, Dr. (Timothy) Trainor, who works with the commission evaluating some of these medical concerns, we got with (Pacquiao’s) two doctors that did his medical exam prior to weigh-in, and we started going through some of these questions as to what does this mean.
“We got our grounding to what the issue was. It’s 6, the fight is supposed to start at 8, you’ve got to be very conscious about the time and the athlete’s health.”
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Aguilar said the commission refused the shot because it was too close to fight time and “you want the fighter to be in a natural state. You don’t want them to be masking the pain. If they’re masking the pain, they are potentially going to have some long-term damage that they may not have had had they not taken the drug.”
According to Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, Pacquiao’s camp let the boxer down big time by failing to disclose the boxer’s shoulder injury.
“If you’re a caring person and Manny actually had an injury, while it has nothing to do with anti-doping, his camp let him down by inaccurately filling out the paperwork for the Nevada Commission in violation of its rules,” said Tygart. “He didn’t get the medication that he otherwise could have used. You feel sorry that his team let him down the way that they did. His team either committed an egregious mistake, or their gamesmanship by not disclosing something that could give the opponent a tactical advantage — a shoulder injury — came back to bite them.
“Or they were worried the fight was going to get cancelled because of the injury, and they weren’t going to get paid. These guys know better.”
Each boxer was paid handsomely for the fight, which Mayweather won by unanimous decision.
ABRAMSON: IF PACQUIAO WAS INJURED, HE SHOULDN’T HAVE FOUGHT
Meanwhile, Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz said Pacquiao will have shoulder surgery this week. Koncz also claimed he checked the wrong box on the medical questionnaire himself with regard to the shoulder injury question.
“Number one, Manny didn’t check the box,” said Koncz. “I checked it. It was just an inadvertent mistake. If I was trying to hide anything, would I have listed all the medications on the sheet that he intended to use? We weren’t trying to hide anything. I just don’t think I read the questionnaire correctly.
“I’m going to take full responsibility for what happened. The wrong box was checked. But I think part of the responsibility also lies with the commission. Wouldn’t you ask a question about all these medications (on the questionnaire)? The bottom line is that we weren’t trying to hide anything. If we had wanted to, we could have done the injection at the hotel before the fight and nobody would have known but we didn’t want to hide anything.”
Koncz added that it was “our understanding that I thought USADA was in constant contact with the commission about all this and the contract we signed with USADA was given to the commission and they were privy to all the test results. This whole incident has been blown out of proportion and the only ones who suffer were Manny and the fans.”
Aguilar said the health of boxers is foremost when it comes to these types of situations before a fight.
“We don’t allow Ibuprofen, Tylenol, or anti-inflammatories. It thins the blood and forces them to bleed even faster. You want the fighter to be in a natural state,” said Aguilar. “When the request was made to us, we made that evaluation, looked at our procedures, looked at our past decisions, and said no, this is not something we can do.”
