Fans should have been talking about a historic moment for the sport last night, instead boxing’s name has been dragged ‘through the mud’ once again after Conor Benn was found to have traces of a banned substance in his system in the lead up to the Chris Eubank Jr fight.
Although all judgement should be reserved until we hear the full story, fans and even some fighters have made their minds up after an ‘adverse finding’ was found in one of Benn’s VADA tests.
Speaking to Boxing Social, retired British Heavyweight, David Price, made his feelings known about the events of the last week.
“It’s devastating for everyone involved, especially the fans who bought tickets and the undercard fighters.
I just don’t know in what world you manage to fail a drugs test at this stage in your career. He’s got professionals around him Conor Benn.
It stinks a little bit, well it f*****g massively stinks to high heaven because it’s what he’s been copped on – it is what it is. It doesn’t look like there is any way to explain that to me.
If it wasn’t down to him, whoever’s done it, they need dealing with appropriately because that’s cost a lot of people a lot of money, put a lot of people at risk, put Chris Eubank at risk potentially.”
With reports that UKAD may now investigate the VADA test result, Conor Benn could potentially be facing a four year ban from the sport. Price agrees that there should be a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to anyone found guilty of cheating.
“It brings boxing names through the mud again with the drug testing.
You’ve got to have a zero tolerance approach to things like that. You get caught on a performance enhancing drug or like steroids.”
About the actual drug that was found in ‘trace amounts’, clomiphene, Price was shocked that someone would take that willingly.
“From what I’m reading about this stuff it is used in body building when people come off steroids to get their own testosterone going again. So when you read that you’re like ‘What the f**’”.