Mayweather allegedly took IV infusions before Pacquiao megabout

Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Facebook)

MANILA – Still undefeated American boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. was reportedly given retroactive exemption for the controversial multivitamins he took before fighting Filipino boxing icon Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao in their May 2 bout billed as the “Fight of the Century.”

According to an SB Nation report, Mayweather received IV injections three weeks before the megafight. This did not conform to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) guidelines.

“Wada has justified the inclusion of IV infusions on the Prohibited List given the intent of some athletes to manipulate their plasma volume levels in order to mask the use of a prohibited substance,” the organization maintained, referring to its 2015 Wada Prohibited Substances and Methods List.

Still, the American pound-for-pound king was granted a therapeutic use exemption for the intravenous medication by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Mayweather’s camp, for their part, admitted that the boxer took IV fluids which contained a mixture of multivitamins and salines. They clarified that these were not banned.

“I did not commit any violations of the Nevada or USADA drug testing guidelines… I follow and have always followed the rules of Nevada and USADA, the gold standard of drug testing,” Mayweather asserted.