Heavyweight contender and serial drug test failure Jarrell Miller has protested his innocence after yet another adverse finding.
Miller denied “willingly” taking a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) after the third failed drug test of his career scotched a fight with Jerry ‘Slug’ Forrest on July 9.
The Brooklyn brawler is currently under a temporary suspension placed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission pending investigation of those test results.
“This is something that was ingested,” Miller told Fight Network. “We don’t know if it was contaminated, but we’re investigating as of right now. Me and my team are just working due diligently to get the facts 100 per cent straight.”
The New Yorker was adamant he had not taken any PEDs to bolster his career, only medication to heal injuries outside of training camp and never before a fight. “No, I have never ever willingly take a steroid for performance enhancement purposes. No,” he maintained.
“Did I take something for healing properties, for injury, yes I have. Before a fight to win a fight and during a training camp, no, I have never done that.”
Miller has previously been found guilty of taking PEDs in 2014 and 2019 where that failure cost him a lucrative opportunity against unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
The latter offence saw him banned six months by the WBA after which he signed with a new promoter Top Rank. There have been repeated calls for Miller to be banned from boxing and, if the results of this third drug test failure prove to be correct, it will be hard to justify a way back.