Former world super-lightweight world champion Pauli Maliganggi has given his take on the recent rough patch the sport has been through in regards to Conor Benn testing positive for trace amounts of a banned substance.
The subsequent fallout from the VADA test lead to his legacy fight with Chris Eubank Jr having to be postponed. In an interview with Boxing Social , Maliganggi suggested that drug taking in boxing is now a ‘big problem’.
“It’s a shame, it’s been something I’ve talked about for a decade and a half already but as soon as you mention somebody’s favourite fighter they don’t want to hear about it.
The odds are if there’s a performance enhancing drugs problem in the sport that the best fighters in the sport are doing it. They’re not a problem at the mid-tier, they’re a problem at the high level so once you say there’s a PED problem in boxing the first place you start looking is that elite level of the sport.
It’s a problem and it’s been a problem for a while and I think it has multiplied because nobody listened and now you have a big problem.”
Malignaggi didn’t hold back when talking about the British Boxing Board of Control’s actions and how the promotion was handled:
“I think it was kind of disgraceful to tell you the truth. When I heard that he had already failed earlier in the promotion. To know that they knew about this and were still going to allow things to happen until the media got a hold of it is really disappointing to me.
Promoters, Eddie was another guy I had a lot of respect for and the things he’s done, but unfortunately greed is greed and money comes first I guess and that’s a shame.”
This comes after the BBBC released a statement confirming that UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) had launched an investigation into Conor Benn’s positive doping test in an attempt to get to the bottom of why Benn tested positive and how.