By Edward Chaykovsky
Francisco Aguilar, chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, disputed some of the statements made at Saturday's post-fight press conference by Top Rank CEO Bob Arum.
Arum claimed the NSAC were fully aware of Manny Pacquiao's right shoulder injury coming into Saturday's main event fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Mayweather won a twelve round unanimous decision and Pacquiao claimed afterwards that his performance was affected due to the injury shoulder.
Arum said Pacquiao injured his shoulder 2 and half weeks ago and was taking anti-inflammatory shots [lidocaine, bupivacaine and celestone], which he says were approved by the United States Anti-Doping Agency [USADA], who were handling the random drug testing protocol.
Pacquiao's team was upset that his request to get an inflammatory shot, 90 minutes prior to the fight, was denied.
Aguilar says the request was denied because nobody had ever advised them of the injury until the night of the fight. They also denied a request by Pacquiao's team to have a personal physician in the corner.
''I made the decision not to allow [the shot] because of the timing of the request and the fact that the fight was going to occur in the next 90 minutes. We were not aware of his injury until tonight at 6:30,'' said Aguilar. ''The medications he was taking were disclosed on his medical questionnaire, but not the actual injury. ... This isn't our first fight. This is our business. There is a process, and when you try to screw with the process, it's not going to work for you.''
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