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.