Tony Bellew has had his say on what changes he would bring into boxing if he was in charge.
‘Bomber’ was speaking at the Katie Taylor vs Karen Elizabeth Carabajal fight at Wembley Arena on Saturday, where the Irish icon defended her undisputed lightweight titles for the seventh time, comfortably defeating the Argentine by unanimous decision.
After giving his thoughts on Taylor’s performance to iFL TV, Bellew was asked about Conor Benn’s doping situation. He mapped out how he would deal with failed tests if he ‘ran the sport.’
“If I ran boxing, what would happen is if you failed a drugs test for PEDs [performance enhancing drugs] you’d be banned for life. Simple.”
That’s if I ran boxing. But guess what, I don’t run boxing. I wish I did, because if I did it would be a much safer sport.”
The former cruiserweight world champion’s comments come after it was announced last week that Conor Benn had failed an additional VADA (Voluntary Anti-Doping Association) test in July, as well as the initially reported September test that caused his fight against Chris Eubank Jr on 8th October to be postponed.
Bellew did go on to say that people shouldn’t judge until they know the full picture:
“You should be very very careful of who and how you condemn people.
So I’m not going to come out here and condemn anyone yet until you know all the results and let’s be honest I don’t know all the results.”
Benn spoke last week for the first time publicly since fight week and appeared emotional about the ongoing events, continuing to proclaim his innocence. He also relinquished his British Boxing Board of Control licence due to the situation and his claims the the Board may be out to get him.
He and his promoter Eddie Hearn seem to believe the positive tests are down to contamination due to the small amounts in his system were.
‘The Destroyer’ Benn was due to face Eubank Jr in a generational fight, over 30 years on from Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank Sr’s first bout in Birmingham in November 1990. The rivalry may have met a bitter end now as it looks unlikely that the fight between the sons will be rescheduled anytime soon.
Despite Bellew’s hard stance on drug cheats, he said elsewhere in the interview that it was correct to reserve judgement until all of the information around these cases was available.