Alvarez withdraws from rematch following positive drug tests

Canelo Alvarez, confronting a suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission later this month for submitting two positive drug tests, withdrew Tuesday from his scheduled May 5 rematch with middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.

“I am truly shocked by what has happened and I lament this has caused people to have doubts about my integrity. I have always been a clean fighter,” Alvarez said in a prepared statement to reporters at his promoter’s office in Los Angeles.

The move comes before Mexico’s former two-division champion is scheduled to appear before the commission April 18 for a hearing that will determine if a one-year suspension will be reduced to six months, allowing Alvarez to fight again one year after his draw with Golovkin on Sept. 16, 2017.

That bout generated more than $27 million in live-gate earnings with 1.3 million pay-per-view buys.

Golovkin, who has remained in training, wants to fight on May 5, and it’s expected his promoter, Tom Loeffler, will select a replacement opponent for Alvarez within the coming days, with Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan and former 154-pound champion Demetrius Andrade contending for the pay-perview opening.

Any perceived wiggle room related to Alvarez’s excuse of eating Clenbuterollaced beef in Mexico — or of the millions of dollars his middleweight-title rematch with champion Golovkin would’ve brought to the state — is nonexistent, according to Nevada’s rules.

Alvarez remained in Mexico after entering the Voluntary Anti-Doping Assn. testing program on Feb. 3, and submitted positive tests for the banned, performance-enhancing substance on Feb. 17 and Feb. 20.