News of one of our major stars Canelo Alvarez failing a test for performance enhancing drugs is shocking but sadly it comes as no surprise.
It is becoming an all too often occurrence, not just in our sport but all sports unfortunately. It seems the prize is becoming worth the risk when there is huge sums of money and world wide celebrity on the line.
Money! Money! Money! Goes the song and it’s not just the fighters to blame, it’s the promoters, managers, trainers, governing bodies and TV companies. The sport is dirty because everyone wants a piece of the big money pie.
Why is Canelo not facing a ban like so many who have fallen foul of the cheating game? Because he has a huge global mega fight pencilled in for May 5th against Gennady Glolovkin. Simple.
The fight, however, and Canelo, who puts it down to contaminated meat eaten in Mexico are now tainted. If he wins it’s because he cheated, if he loses its because they stopped him cheating.
The big disgrace is the example this shows the youngsters who look up to their heroes every move and will now think it’s ok to cheat. Win at all cost is the message they are pushing because it’s ok, unless you get caught.
Even then, it’s a brief ban, fine or in Canelo’s case, a change of training base so the governing bodies can be seen to be doing something??? Sham.
What does it take to change? Can they change it? Boxing has to change because unlike other sports ours is a tough physical combat sport where people get hurt and can die.
It takes one fatality, just one where the winning boxer is caught cheating and its a whole different situation. Its then criminal, we can not let them get away with murder.
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