Boxing’s PED Crisis Rears Its Ugly Head -- Again

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When most people think of boxing’s alphabet-soup organizations, the letter groupings that come most readily to mind represent such world sanctioning bodies as the WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO. However, the familiar standbys have been joined in the public consciousness lately by VADA, WADA and USADA.

Those are anti-doping agencies, and the renewed frequency of references to them in sports stories is not only disturbing but suggests that the crisis involving performance-enhancing drugs in the 1990s and 2000s is making a determined comeback. The clean-up so many people wanted to believe had been accomplished in recent years appears to be like the typical teenager’s bedroom; mom can demand that the mess be tidied up to House Beautiful standards -- and maybe it is for a while -- but before too long, dirty clothes are strewn everywhere and it’s the same old disaster zone.

A raft of high-profile cases involving Olympic athletes, baseball players and, yes, fighters lends credence to the creeping suspicion that the plague of PEDs has not been cured but was merely in temporary remission. The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the most expensive ever staged with a price tag of $50 billion, was a veritable orgy of violations involving Russian competitors, possibly with that country’s government offering its tacit or outright approval to a new generation of juicers. Eyebrows, perhaps not unexpectedly, were raised when Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin -- who, it should be noted, was the super heavyweight gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics -- tested positive for Meldonium, leading to his May 21 challenge of WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in Moscow being postponed indefinitely. Meldonium, which was added to the list of banned substances by the World Anti-Doping Agency on Jan. 1, has properties that result in increased blood flow, which can enhance athletic performance.

Australia’s Lucas Browne won the WBA’s “regular” heavyweight title in a 10th-round stoppage of Ruslan Chagaev on March 5 in Grozny, Chechyna, but he was stripped of that recognition when both his “A” and “B” samples tested positive for Clenbuterol, a substance long favored by bodybuilders to lose fat and build lean muscle. Clenbuterol also is used on cattle and racehorses in some countries, although it is strictly prohibited in the United States and by member countries in the European Union.

Clenbuterol also is the scruffy passenger that has unfortunately hitched a ride with WBC super featherweight champion Francisco “El Bandido” Vargas (23-0-1, 17 KOs) as he prepares for his June 4 title defense against three-time former world titlist Orlando Salito (43-13-3, 30 KOs) at the StubHub Center in Carson, California -- a likely slugfest that will be televised via HBO Boxing After Dark. Vargas is an all-action Mexican fighter whose dethroning of Japan’s Takashi Miura on Nov. 21 was so riveting that it was named the 2015 “Fight of the Year” by several media outlets, including the Boxing Writers Association of America, which will recognize him at its 91st annual Awards Dinner on June 24 in New York City. There are high hopes that Vargas can go back-to-back in that department against the always-willing-to-mix-it-up Salido. Eric Gomez, the matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions, which promotes Vargas, said Vargas-Salido is “sure to be a candidate for Fight of the Year” -- an idea seconded by Vargas’ manager, Ralph Heredia.

“Not only as a manager, but as a fan, it’s definitely going to be a candidate for Fight of the Year,” Heredia said with unabashed enthusiasm.

Vargas echoed those sentiments.

“This definitely could be a candidate for Fight of the Year,” he said. “I have always said I wanted to fight the best, and I consider Orlando Salido one of the best. Our styles match very good in the ring. It’s going to make for a very exciting fight.”

Heredia’s upbeat mood soured quickly, however, during a teleconference with persistent media inquisitors who kept asking about his fighter testing positive for Clenbuterol. The level was low enough and the date far enough out to convince WBC officials to allow the bout to proceed as scheduled.

“We had three tests [since the initial positive result] and they all came back negative,” Heredia said before launching into a treatise on the flaws and foibles of a drug-testing system that had unfairly painted Vargas with the same brush that had splashed a double coat on the busted Browne. “Francisco was tested in California on April 15. The test came back negative. He goes to [his hometown of] Mexico City on April 16, [and] his mom makes one of his favorite dishes, which is carne asada, made with bone and broth. He has dinner on Wednesday and leftovers on Thursday. That evening, [the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency] knocks on his door; he gets tested again on April 21. That test came back positive for Clenbuterol, but [he] tested very low: 1.3.

“I did my own research with Victor Conte, who I believe is one of the more knowledgeable guys [concerning PEDs],” he added. “I just wanted to get his input. He told me that most laboratories don’t even test for anything below 2.0. He was very surprised that VADA [issued a positive ruling] on 1.3. He said that any individual that tries to do something deliberate will test 5.0. He said that, basically, the test showed that Francisco had to have had some contaminated food. In Mexico, they use [Clenbuterol] for cattle. Why? I don’t know, but I do know that Francisco did not test positive for [elevated] testosterone. That’s why the fight is still on.”

Heredia’s reliance on Conte as a sort of expert defense witness is both sensible and curious. As the founder and president of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, better known as BALCO, Conte knows of whence he speaks. However, he served four months in prison after pleading guilty in 2005 to conspiracy to distribute steroids and money-laundering, and his celebrity client list included disgraced Olympic sprinter Marion Jones, champion boxer Shane Mosley and baseball home run king Barry Bonds, he of the literally swollen head and cartoonishly inflated biceps. Conte was widely viewed as the serpent who enticed world-class athletes with an apple enriched with anabolic steroids, Human Growth Hormone, Erythropoietin (EPO) and designer drugs that came to be known as “the Clear” and “the Cream.” A reformed Conte told me in 2010 that fighters beating announced drug tests is as easy as a shortcut-seeking student sneaking crib notes into the classroom for a final exam and taking peeks at them while the teacher remained at her desk or kept her nose in an engrossing novel.

“Most fighters open training camp about eight weeks before a fight,” he said with the assurance of someone who really knows his subject. “The only way to ensure they’re really clean is to have some type of random, unannounced testing, both blood and urine testing. Announced testing is worthless. Any time an athlete knows when he or she is going to be tested, they or someone advising them knows the clearance time of those performance-enhancing drugs. If you know urine tests are going to be administered immediately before and after a fight, all you have to do is taper off an adequate number of days and you’re going to test negative. I believe there’s a rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs in boxing, and there has been for decades. It’s certainly not anything new.”

This is not to say that Vargas’ mother’s carne asada was not to blame for the positive test. Thus, it should cease to be included among his favorite meals, at least until he hangs up his gloves. Salido and his manager, Sean Gibbons, although agreeing to proceed with the fight, are not so willing to accept the Heredia-offered explanation that an innocent and relatively harmless mistake had been made.

“I have never been a protected fighter,” said Salido, who tested positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid which promotes muscle growth and increased red blood cell production, in Las Vegas years ago. He was branded -- unfairly, he maintains -- as a drug cheat. “I have to take the fights that are offered to me. [Vargas’ positive test is] not really my concern. That’s why we have a commission. They tell me the fight is on, so I’m going to get in the ring and fight him, but if it had been me that tested positive, you know the fight would have been canceled. It would have been over and done with. Is that justice? I don’t know. They never would have given me a chance to prove otherwise.”

Gibbons also has his doubts.

“[Clenbuterol is used in racehorses in Mexico, to open up the breathing and to have more strength,” he said. “It’s not just for cutting weight. It absolutely does give you a benefit, if he was using it [for that purpose]. We’re not saying he was. Maybe it was tainted meat. Maybe someone Ralph didn’t even know gave [Vargas] a supplement. If this had happened seven to 10 days out from the fight, we would have serious issues about going forward. Thank God it happened when it happened. We feel it was caught far enough out by VADA that we’re going to [accept Vargas’] reasoning.”

Still, the question of PEDs in boxing -- in all of sports, for that matter -- lives on, like vampires that sleep the slumber of death in their coffins during the day but eternally rise at sundown. It usually boils down to risk versus reward, and there always are going to be those who dance with the devil if the pot of gold at the end of the pharmaceutical rainbow is enticing enough.

Baseball’s updated version of Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro is Miami Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon, whose four home runs in 2015, although a career-high, offer scant proof that he bulked up, from 144 pounds as a rookie in 2011 to 170, for the purpose of swinging for the fences. However, Gordon, who earlier this season was suspended for 80 games after testing positive for Clostebal and exogenous testosterone, led the National League in batting average (.333), stolen bases (58) and hits (205), becoming the first player to lead the circuit in hitting and steals since Jackie Robinson in 1949. The Marlins rewarded his career year by signing him to a five-year, $50 million extension in January.

“Though I did not do so knowingly, I have been informed that test results showed I ingested something that contained prohibited substances,” Gordon said in the standard “Who, me?” prepared statement. “… I made a mistake and I accept the consequences.”

Gordon being thrown out by a drug-testing chemist in a white lab coat instead of a strong-armed catcher serves as still another reminder of a dark era when, in December 2009, Sports Illustrated named baseball’s steroid scandal as the No. 1 sports story of the 2000s.

In the ring, on the diamond or in the Olympics, the specter of increasing use of banned substances might not yet be the No. 1 sports story of the 2010s. However, it is clearly a contender, and that gives all of us something to chew on as we settle into our seats at the ballpark or on fight night.

Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.