Brilliant gamesmanship pegs Floyd as good guy

But it’s brilliant.

OK, so Uncle Roger probably didn’t think this one up.

At the least, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is playing a mean hand of gamesmanship that rivals any drenching the Giants did to their infield to slow Maury Wills in 1962 or any winged keel Australia II used in the 1983 America’s Cup.

Mayweather has done what many might have surmised impossible this time last week: He has made himself the good guy and Manny Pacquiao the one whose motives are being questioned.

You have to realize the fight everyone wants to see is going to happen because Mayweather and Pacquiao and those who promote and fawn over them didn’t reach such an elevated and wealthy status by acting like idiots when boatloads of money are involved.

They can all count, and this would mean an unfathomable number of dollars — how does $40 million sound? — for each side.

There can’t be enough stupid people in the two camps to mess this up, right?

Right?

But the fight set for March 13 at the MGM Grand has stalled in a state of blood-drawn limbo, the result of a disagreement over which drug-testing protocol would be used. Reports on Thursday indicated that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said the fight is off.

I doubt it, because if Pacquiao-Mayweather is replaced with Pacquiao-Malignaggi, well, shoot us all now.

Mayweather wants Olympic-style testing, which means random urine and blood samples are collected throughout training camp, during fight week and probably just before and after the bout.

Pacquiao isn’t a fan. He doesn’t want random blood testing. He doesn’t want it drawn on fight night. He believes it will weaken him.

He doesn’t have a needle to stand on.

Three months before the fight is to take place, Mayweather has backed Pacquiao into a corner and dared him to fight out of it, and for an athlete with a collection of tattoos, the idea of being squeamish at having a tablespoon of blood drawn three to five times over 10 weeks shouldn’t fly with any sensible mind.

No matter when they take it.

I believe Mayweather is nervous about fighting Pacquiao, that he has seen enough of the world champion in seven weight classes to realize this has every chance of being the man who will finally hand him a professional loss, that by playing mind games now with the drug testing debate, he gains an early psychological edge.

He is already in Pacquiao’s head.

Or at least the heads of those who represent him.

Arum says this is Mayweather’s way of avoiding the fight, that he is using the testing procedure as a smokescreen, that he never wanted to oppose his guy.

Let’s assume all that to be true.

Again, it’s brilliant strategy on Mayweather’s part.

Pacquiao and his people can try all day long to turn the issue. The fact is, the fighter has been challenged to submit to the most stringent form of athletic drug testing and is balking.

He has been asked to help prove his sport clean by agreeing to have the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency oversee testing for the fight and has responded by wanting the USADA to alter its guidelines on random tests.

Pacquiao is retreating from the world’s drug testing program.

He comes off as running scared.

Which creates suspicion.

Which creates doubt.

Which might not get Pacquiao beat in the ring but will get him pummeled in the court of public opinion.

Which, for a man who is again set to run for political office in his native Philippines, isn’t a good thing.

Compromise will come. Too much money is at stake. I’m assuming the sides will agree to a certain amount of blood and urine tests. I’m guessing they won’t all be random.

I don’t even think Mayweather’s camp believes it would catch Pacquiao cheating. He has never failed a drug test. The odds of an athlete of either fighter’s stature, and with the resources that offers, testing positive for human growth hormone or blood doping are still astronomical.

Put it this way: They have been testing for HGH for the past five years, and no one has been busted for failing. Marion Jones, remember, passed 160 drug tests before pleading guilty to lying about steroid use.

Neither fighter is failing any test before or after March 13, no matter what protocol is agreed upon.

But as it stands today, any concession Pacquiao negotiates away from Olympic random testing by the USADA will make him appear a man with something to hide.

As it stands today, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the soccer player feigning injury near the penalty area.

It’s good ol’ fashioned gamesmanship.

I’d love to know which one of the enablers thought it up. Brilliant stuff.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He also can be heard weeknights from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on “The Sports Scribes” on KDWN-AM (720) and www.kdwn.com.