LET’S cut to the chase about the use of Performance-Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) in boxing. Many news outlets in today’s landscape compete with one another to break the news about a fighter’s transgressions. However, that’s where everything essentially ceases to exist. We’ll get the obligatory, politically correct quotes from the promoters, B-sample countdown parties, and ineffectual debates with a largely tendentious fanbase on social media. While that charade ensues, there’s little to no reporting or discussion regarding lenient and inconsistent punishments for failed drug tests.
So, let’s have a proper discussion for anyone following the sport in recent years.
The Punishment For Failed Drug Tests Is Inconsistent Across The Board
Ryan Garcia was suspended for one year after he settled with the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) earlier this month following his positive tests for ostarine. Garcia’s April 20 decision victory over Devin Haney was subsequently overturned to a no-contest. Furthermore, he forfeited his $1.2 million purse, which was less than what he was paid, returned it to Golden Boy (his promoter), and was fined $10,000 by the commission. Some say NYSAC’s discipline of Garcia was both harsh and lenient. However, when you factor in Team Garcia’s attempts to prove his supplements were contaminated and how they weren’t convincing, it seems his punishment needed to go further.
On February 19, 2022, soon after suffering a brutal sixth-round TKO loss to longtime rival Kell Brook, Amir Khan supplied a urine sample to an official from UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) that tested positive for ostarine. He was notified of the positive result on April 6 and was issued a provisional and confidential suspension. Approximately a month later, the former world champion announced his retirement, stating his “love for the sport wasn’t there anymore.” Khan was subsequently charged with two anti-doping rule violations but maintained his ingestion of ostarine was unintentional. Although an independent tribunal ruled out “deliberate or reckless conduct” by Khan, a two-year ban was imposed on him. UKAD announced Khan’s ban more than a year after their original suspension.
“Strict liability means athletes are ultimately responsible for what they ingest and for the presence of any prohibited substances in a sample,” UKAD chief executive Jane Rumble said in a statement. Khan was cleared of intentional doping yet was still handed a two-year suspension. NYSAC did not issue a statement supporting Team Garcia’s contamination claims, yet he was given a shorter suspension, albeit his monetary fine was undoubtedly steep.
Just days after Garcia was punished, boxing got it wrong in another case. Former 112-pound world champion Julio Cesar Martinez was suspended for nine months by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) in recent days after he tested positive for three banned substances ahead of his March 30 split decision victory over Angelino Cordova on the Tim Tszyu-Sebastian Fundora undercard.
Martinez has long drawn the ire of boxing media and fans for missing weight and canceling fights at the last minute. Nine months for three banned substances, which included diuretics and masking agents, is a joke. There’s no way around it. His punishment is somewhat reminiscent of that of former heavyweight title contender Jarrell Miller, who was suspended just six months by the WBA after failing three drug tests for some of the most potent performance-enhancing drugs on the market, including Human Growth Hormone (HGH), GW1516, and EPO. After serving his suspension, Miller failed another drug test and was shelved for two years.
Strict Liability Is Selectively Enforced
UKAD may have gotten the Khan case right, but they have been far from perfect. Leading up to his July 20, 2019, fight against Oscar Rivas in London, perennial heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte tested positive for two banned substances: epimethandienone and hydroxymethandienon (two metabolites of the banned drug Dianabol) in a test administered by UKAD. The results were reported to Whyte’s team, including Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn and the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBoC). Rivas’ team was not informed of the positive test, and the BBBoC allowed the fight to proceed anyway. Nearly five months after Whyte won by decision, UKAD ruled the metabolite levels contained in Whyte’s urine were “consistent with an isolated contamination event” and “not suggestive of doping.”
It’s a different story when you don’t have that popularity or the leverage of a top promoter and legal team. UKAD suspended Moisés Calleros for four years following a positive drug test, only to learn he had been dead for several months. Calleros tested positive for cocaine and its metabolite benzoylecgonine following his stoppage defeat to Olympic gold medalist Galal Yafai in April 2023. Why are there so many double standards?
Follow The Money And Popularity
Except for UFC’s TJ Dillashaw, fighters who test positive for performance-enhancing drugs won’t admit they committed any wrongdoing. They’ll blame contamination, perhaps someone on their team, or they’ll threaten legal action against those responsible for them getting outed. And often, it works because these lawsuits can cost those decision-making entities hundreds of thousands of dollars.
After former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury tested positive for nandrolone in February 2015, the 6’9 Englishman sued UKAD over the findings. His cousin, Hughie Fury, also a boxer, was also charged. By November 2017, UKAD feared its legal fight with Fury could bankrupt the entire organization. That’s the risk you take when you take on a top-rated fighter backed with a lot of money behind the scenes. You’re taking on an entire army. A month later, on December 12, Fury accepted a backdated two-year doping ban. The suspension also ended on December 12, meaning the Fury’s weren’t punished. Again, strict liability is selectively enforced. Fighters who are irrelevant or have slid into irrelevancy get the hammer thrown at them. Those who make the sport a ton of money and have a robust support system behind them get the best deals.
Undisputed junior lightweight world champion Alycia Baumgardner tested positive for mesterolone just days before her points victory over Christina Linardatou in their rematch last year. After vigorously fighting for her innocence, Baumgardner was cleared of intentional doping and allowed to keep her belt. If Baumgardner had been a champion with little fanfare from an island off the coast of Guam, strict liability would likely have been applied, and she would no longer be the undisputed champion.
Conor Benn also went to extreme lengths to prove his innocence following his positive tests for clomifene. While under suspension in his native United Kingdom, Benn was licensed by the Florida Athletic Commission (FAC) after the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) removed him from the national suspension list after submitting a clean drug test to the commission. Unfortunately for Benn, he has since run into more trouble. The National Anti-Doping Panel lifted his suspension last July. However, UKAD and the BBBoC filed an appeal against that decision, and it was upheld, meaning Benn will be provisionally suspended again until further notice. Sometimes, UKAD and the BBBoC get it right.
More Testing Isn’t The Solution; Testing Negative Doesn’t Mean You’re Clean
Ryan Garcia could have tested positive five times for ostarine, and it wouldn’t have made a difference, not to his fans at least. They’ll argue that six nanograms is a small amount when, in fact, it’s rather large. And when that argument fails to convince people, they’ll talk about all the tests he took that came back clean and ignore entirely the tests that returned with positive results. With today’s advanced microdosing techniques, traces of illegal performance-enhancing drugs can exit the body within a few days. That’s one of many reasons catching people in the act is so difficult. Presumably, many fans are aware of this but choose to be flagrantly ignorant because being a fan of something is great, and living outside reality can be fun. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury.
A National Commission Is A Good Idea If Executed Properly
Golden Boy founder and promoter Oscar De La Hoya also criticized the inconsistencies surrounding failed drug tests. “First of all, I do not condone doping under any circumstances. But let’s talk about the inconsistencies, the punishments, and the millions of dollars. I don’t get it. We need a commission that oversees everything in each state because Canelo [Alvarez] got caught in one state and got six months. Shane Mosley got caught in another state, and he got nothing. So you’re telling me that Ryan Garcia is going to get a year? That’s not right,” he stated in a video on social media Wednesday evening.
For the record, De La Hoya is currently on poor terms with Canelo Alvarez, his former fighter, and his longtime rival Shane Mosley, who beat him twice as a professional but the context is essential. Would a national commission be a good idea?
It truly depends. If the commission hires individuals who still have skin in the game and have their hands dipped in other boxing endeavors to oversee essential cases, that’s a great way to make the panel completely useless. A conflict of interest would undoubtedly unfold, and then we’d be back to square one, with people playing favorites and cutting deals, with perhaps some extra money on the side. The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act is a prime example. The legislation is supposed to bar individuals from acting as promoters and managers simultaneously, yet that still occurs in the sport today.
Some Commissions Are Discombobulated Messes Behind The Scenes
Many of these commissions and decision-making entities are run by individuals who don’t understand performance-enhancing drugs, let alone the boxing business. They are also not held accountable for much, so they have no incentive to become subject-matter experts or do their jobs. For instance, following Baumgardner’s positive test, contacting Michigan Unarmed Combat Commission chairman Donald Weatherspoon was difficult. He’s an 81-year-old man who couldn’t answer most of our questions.
On the NYSAC side, there was former executive director Kim Sumbler, who abruptly resigned from her position amidst the PED case surrounding Garcia‘s two failed drug tests, citing the need to take care of her elderly parents. While we’re not questioning her parents’ health, they could very well be ill. We wish them the best, but the timing was rather peculiar, and it was well-known that during her seven-year tutelage, she hardly spent time at the office. In fact, Sumbler spent much of her time in Canada.
In any case, we must be meticulous in who we hire for said commission. As the great Teddy Atlas noted in 2014, “Somebody, some congressman, some senator, some assemblyman, somebody with some guts, with a little bit of integrity, come forward and help us with this sport. It is a corrupt sport. It is a sport that does not do justice to these great athletes. This is a sham!”
While this writer would avoid anyone involved in politics, there is an overwhelming consensus that this sport needs someone or a group of people with a solid track record of honesty and toughness to run a national commission. Should we hire individuals with questionable character and conduct, we will not achieve any results on this issue. As is customary, money and greed will supersede common sense, especially on the issue of performance-enhancing drugs.
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