Floyd Mayweather skeptical of Alex Ariza's influence on Marcos Maidana

Floyd Mayweather has been one of the leading voices against performance enhancing drugs in the sport of boxing, and for years now has mandated that fighters he faces undergo extensive pre-fight drug testing with USADA, which he, too, has done, as he aims to prove he's a clean fighter and that his opponents are, as well.

Mayweather (45-0, 26 KO) faces Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO) on May 3 on Showtime pay-per-view, but Mayweather sounds a little skeptical of his opponent, noting his association with Alex Ariza, the former strength and conditioning coach for both Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan, among other fighters.

"I don't have anything against anyone, but I noticed that when the guy, Alex Ariza, was in Amir Khan's corner and when he faced Maidana, Amir Khan looked super strong in that fight," Mayweather said on a media conference call yesterday. "Then you go back and look at it, I go look at Maidana's fights against certain guys, like when he fought Alexander, he was strong, he was still coming ahead because he's the kind of guy that comes straight ahead, and liked the looped shots. He wasn't as strong as he was in the Adrien Broner fight. In the Adrien Broner fight he was a lot stronger than he was in a lot of his past fights."

Floyd continued, "I don't know if Alex Ariza plays a major role into that, but when I sit back and I look, I'm looking at Pacquiao versus Bradley and I notice ever since Ariza has not been with Pacquiao anymore there's been a total change in his power.

"So I look at things like that and I question things like that to myself, but I don't worry about anything and I'm not going to say nothing about Ariza because I think he's a pretty cool guy. I don't really know him, but we got USADA, which is the best in the world, and we're going to continue to go out there and do what we supposed to do."

Mayweather added that he read an article where trainer Freddie Roach, a noted Ariza detractor, said he didn't know what he was giving his fighters when the two worked in the same camps.

"It was kind of crazy when I heard that, but like I said before, I don't see the same pop in Pacquiao's shots," Mayweather said. "Once again, I'm not saying this guy is doing anything, but I don't see the same snap in his shots. He's getting tired when he wasn't getting tired before. I'm seeing something totally different whereas me, I'm still sharp, I'm still smart, I'm not getting fatigued. I wasn't getting fatigued from the beginning, and those are the things that I see. I don't know if you guys see it, but that's what I see."