EDITOR’S LETTER
If the Golovkin rematch goes ahead after Canelo’s failed test, what hope is there?
The fallout from the shock Canelo news
ONE week after a man dies from injuries sustained in boxing, another one roams free with a failed drug test in his back pocket. Weaponry enhanced, reputation ruined, and his place in one of the richest fights in history secure. Because at the time of writing, Canelo Alvarez, training for his May 5 rematch with Gennady Golovkin, is being forgiven by authorities after clenbuterol, which builds clean muscle while burning fat, was discovered in his system.
But the clean-muscled and fat-free Alvarez claims the illegal substance reached his bloodstream via contaminated meat eaten in Mexico, a nation which still allows their livestock to be contaminated, despite it consistently being held accountable for the contamination of their athletes. Some might even go as far as to suggest the contaminated animals remain so they can be used as an excuse, time and again, for those dirty, contaminated athletes. Don’t worry, Mr Drug Cheat, just make sure you eat some Mexican meat.
So, after the WBA and WBC drew predictable conclusions that Canelo is innocent, boxing put its hand in the air and raised its grubby middle finger to the world. If you’ve got the cash to splash in this game, any excuse will do.
Warnings from drug-testing bodies have been issued since 2011 about the dangers of eating meat in Mexico and China. Those warnings, after all this time, really should have been laws by now. It does seem odd – see also, unfathomable – that in 2018, where so much money is spent on nutrition, that so little attention could have been paid to origins of the meat that found its way to Canelo’s fork.
Of course, Canelo may well have unknowingly eaten a slab of steak carved from a clenbuterol-fuelled cow. But if that’s the case, more fool him. He has a massive responsibility to ensure he eats meat that isn’t contaminated. However the illegal substance ended up in Canelo’s body, he should be punished for it being there. He should not be allowed to fight again. Most certainly, though, he should not be permitted to earn a career-best payday in three months’ time.
In a sport where men like Scott Westgarth are killed and all too quickly forgotten, boxers who fail tests have to be thrown out.
It was almost fate. It was almost the perfect bad ending to a toxic fortnight. Days after Deontay Wilder defeated drug cheat Luis Ortiz, and one week after Westgarth’s death, boxing was presented with that golden chance to show it really can do the right thing after all. While sad and depressing, a fighter of Canelo’s standing flunking a test should have been the rock bottom required to rise again. All it needed to do was cancel the fight, and punish the offender. But no. That would not have generated enough cash.
The WBA, via their president Gilberto Jesus Mendoza, even went as far to say that the incident “will add a bit of drama” to the rematch. His statement was no doubt a nod to the old saying, ‘Any publicity is good publicity’. Such ‘drama’ in boxing is quite different to an emerging rock star trashing his hotel room, though.
Problem is, by the time the opening bell sounds on May 5, it’s likely that Canelo will have proved his ‘innocence’ by being cleverer under intense testing. We’ll be told that he has passed a record number of subsequent tests and all will have been forgiven.
Until, perhaps, something really horrible happens inside the ring. And then it will be too late, of course. The sport, which allows boxers to enter the ring even after they have been caught with PEDS in their body, will be ruined forever.
But, for now, Golovkin will accept his challenge and the authorities will grant him the chance. Because short-sighted gains will always trump long-term thinking in boxing.
Canelo is not bigger than the sport but he is being treated as such. The sport will survive without him. And in light of this latest news, it would be so much stronger without him.