Thomas Hauser Article on Floyd Mayweather Jr's Failed Drug Tests

Henno30

I've always felt you can cherrypick numbers to make what ever argument you want in this debate. For example it took Manny last weighed in at 125 in 2004, and first weighed in 20 pounds heavier at 145 in 2010 six years later. Floyd on the other hand last fought at 130 against Chavez in 2001, and weighed in 20 pounds heavier against Oscar in 2007, also six years later.

That kind of stuff can be very misleading, plus with rehydration and dehydration you don't really know what their natural weights were in any case.

The whole thing about Manny starting at flyweight is a red herring as well. If you compare pictures of Floyd and Manny at age 15/16 that immediately becomes obvious. Floyd's muscularity is well developed, as you would expect from an Olympic athlete in a first world country. Manny on the other hand, as a street kid in a third world country, is skin and bone.

supackofidiots

Not a chance The King was on the juice, he's the cleanest athlete in sport.

Make no mistake about it, he is all talent, hard work and dedication.

Boxing is a dirty sport, but the King is the least one of the lot to be pissing poison.

gene_tunney

supackofidiots wrote: »

Not a chance The King was on the juice, he's the cleanest athlete in sport.

Make no mistake about it, he is all talent, hard work and dedication.

Boxing is a dirty sport, but the King is the least one of the lot to be pissing poison.

Hard work and medication.

supersean1999

been away for a couple of days, read through the thread, to many posts to reply about, i would agree the chart even as impressive as it looks in reality its misleading. its the weight gain in his late 20s early30s that casts a doubt over pac imo ,
a lot of fighters raise doubts, the golden boy s weight chart would be interesting from 16 up to he retired, but obviously innocent until proven guilty,

gene_tunney

supersean1999 wrote: »

been away for a couple of days, read through the thread, to many posts to reply about, i would agree the chart even as impressive as it looks in reality its misleading. its the weight gain in his late 20s early30s that casts a doubt over pac imo ,
a lot of fighters raise doubts, the golden boy s weight chart would be interesting from 16 up to he retired, but obviously innocent until proven guilty,

Too much focus is placed on weight. Boxers gain and lose fat all the time. It's abnormal musculature that gives the game away. If you look at steroid users who have been caught in the past, they all have that same hypermuscled appearance e.g. Holyfield, Olubamiwo, RJJ, Tommy Morrison, Mosley, Berto. Pac doesn't have this look, he's just very cut.

But for stuff like EPO there's no way of telling by physical appearance.

megadodge

In relation to Pacquiaou's weight, there is one issue that has to be taken into consideration and that is that Pac's weight was obviously kept artificially low when he won the flyweight title. He lost that title on the scales, as he just couldn't get anywhere near the weight despite starving himself. He was easily stopped in 3 when the fight went ahead as he was a walking skeleton. This was borne out then when his next fight was at SUPER BANTAM, three weight divisions higher!! So it's safe to say he also had grown in that timeframe as well - which is normal.

This type of weight reduction has always been a big thing in that part of the world especially Thailand. I remember the famous Thai-based English trainer George Francis highlighting this in an interview. When Sot Chitalada came to England in the 1980's to defend his world flyweight title against Chalrie Magri, the word from everyone who had seen the Thai train was that he was enormous (bigger than some lightweights in the same gym) and they couldn't understand how he could possibly make flyweight. If you ever look at the legendary Kaosai Galaxy and compare his upper body to any opponent, he looks like a tank.

The chart is pretty much a very similar comparison besides those few years at flyweight. Don't pretend otherwise.

moneyman

supackofidiots wrote: »

Not a chance The King was on the juice, he's the cleanest athlete in sport.

Make no mistake about it, he is all talent, hard work and dedication.

Boxing is a dirty sport, but the King is the least one of the lot to be pissing poison.

How have you not been perma-banned for multiple accounts? This is your third one, at the very least.

walshb

gene_tunney wrote: »

Hard work and medication.

Hand on heart I don't think Floyd is a user.

gene_tunney

walshb wrote: »

Hand on heart I don't think Floyd is a user.

I agree, just joking.

Wild_Dogger

The whole world is crooked as fcuk ..........
theres hardly an honest person in it in my opinion.

I dont know any anyway. Nothing even raises an eyebrow these days

Halloween Jack

Wild_Dogger wrote: »

The whole world is crooked as fcuk ..........
theres hardly an honest person in it in my opinion.

I dont know any anyway. Nothing even raises an eyebrow these days

I recently did a bit of reading around doping in sport, when the Armstrong stuff broke.

It made for depressing reading, one article by a famed doping doctor turned whistleblower was particularly eye opening, it was shortly before the Beijing Olympics, he claimed that doping would be widespread, from every competitor in the 100m final to even the archers who took downers to cure the shakes.

He claimed to have worked for people at all levels of all sorts of sports and claimed that a large majority of what we perceive to be honest, clean competition is a sham.

To be honest, it makes sense to an extent, the doctor claimed the difference between 9.9 over 100m and 9.6 or whatever was doping. The Tour de France is a lot slower now than armstrong's years and the article alluded to the feats achieved by known dopers in baseball.

The fans and sponsors to an extent demand these feats, and that is why the dopers can get away with it, the rewards outweigh the consequences and there just isn't the appetite for the fight to eradicate it.

In the face of this it seems almost irrelevant wether any individual has doped or not, as surely, many of his competitors will be, as the problem is so bad. The worrying thing about that article for me, is the suggestion that USADA are complicit in manipulating testing etc. these are the guys that took down Armstrong. If they are part of the problem then I'm afraid all bets are off.....

supackofidiots

moneyman wrote: »

How have you not been perma-banned for multiple accounts? This is your third one, at the very least.

you're completely wrong. if you suspect that though you should report it to the mods who can then investigate and vindicate me.

EireIceMan

supackofidiots wrote: »

you're completely wrong. if you suspect that though you should report it to the mods who can then investigate and vindicate me.

Just out of memory, there was very few here who referred to mayweather as 'King'. The only two I recall were banned and were the same guy (i mean, thats not even his nickname, its kahns), so you cant blame him. I dont;)

vision267

EireIceMan wrote: »

Just out of memory, there was very few here who referred to mayweather as 'King'. The only two I recall were banned and were the same guy (i mean, thats not even his nickname, its kahns), so you cant blame him. I dont;)

Oh no :rolleyes:

supackofidiots

EireIceMan wrote: »

Just out of memory, there was very few here who referred to mayweather as 'King'. The only two I recall were banned and were the same guy (i mean, thats not even his nickname, its kahns), so you cant blame him. I dont;)

Well I'm a regular poster on boxingscene and I can assure you Floyd is referred to as The King in almost every second post over there. You can't fault me for assuming it was the same sort of friendly banter over here.

Also, If I recall correctly, the two posters you are referring to actually closed their accounts and weren't actually banned. I can't blame them for closing their accounts with some of the pretense and diatribes that has come out of the so called ''boxing fans'' on this thread alone.

raven136

Victor Conte on the Joe Rogan podcast recently opened my eyes to a lot of this.

Well worth a listen for everyone.

gene_tunney

gene_tunney wrote: »

I don't believe Pac is. He has none of the hallmarks. Quite a few have been caught using illegal substances, here's a few off the top of my head:

Toney
Roy Jones Jnr (androstenedione)
Vargas
Holyfield (anabolic steroids - can't remember which compound)
Mosley (EPO and steroids)
Tarver
Olubamiwo (17 different substances lol)
Berto
Peterson (testosterone)
Tommy Morrison
Vitali Klitschko (amateur)
Botha
Mayorga
Orlando Salido (nandrolone)
Briggs (asthma)
Enzo Macarinelli (dexaprine - methylhexaneamine)
Richard Hall androstenedione
JCC - furosemide

Adding Marius Wach to this list.

Confirmation here for the German speakers amongst you: http://www.bild.de/sport/mehr-sport/mariusz-wach/gegner-mariusz-wach-unter-doping-verdacht-27488988.bild.html

A sample positive, B sample yet to be tested.

endswell

GAMBOA in the sh*t now. (acc to Dan Rafael and Steve Kim)

http://www.boxingscene.com/report-yuriorkis-gamboa-linked-ped-supplier--61872

Henno30

endswell wrote: »

GAMBOA in the sh*t now. (acc to Dan Rafael and Steve Kim)

http://www.boxingscene.com/report-yuriorkis-gamboa-linked-ped-supplier--61872

Relevant excerpt from the report:

In the 2009 notebook, Bosch outlines an extensive program he was shipping to Gamboa. In addition to protein powders and calcium/magnesium/zinc compounds, he included a six-day-a-week HGH regime, IGF-1, and a cream with 20 percent testosterone.

What's more, Bosch even notes that Gamboa's next bout is scheduled against Brandon Rios the following April and writes, "Start clean-up Dec. 1" — presumably giving the boxer enough time to pass doping tests. (The fight against Rios was later canceled, but Gamboa won two other fights by TKO and KO that January and February.)

http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/1/29/3928426/yuriorkis-gamboa-miami-athletes-linked-miami-drug-clinic

Henno30

For those who suggest that juicers in boxing tend to have the bodybuilder look they have another case in point in Gamboa. He looked like a tank in the lead up to his last fight.

gene_tunney

Henno30 wrote: »

For those who suggest that juicers in boxing tend to have the bodybuilder look they have another case in point in Gamboa. He looked like a tank in the lead up to his last fight.

Agreed.

endswell

A few more boxers may be following suit when the Fuentes case starts to pick up steam

Frank Bullitt

Will this turn into another Armstrong style case for boxing?

Henno30

Gintonious wrote: »

Will this turn into another Armstrong style case for boxing?

If you're referring to Gamboa then no, it's not even remotely close. In fact there probably isn't any boxer on the same level of global stardom as Armstrong was, and certainly there's no boxer involved in the same sort of long running saga around this issue.

Even if Pacquiao or Mayweather were found to be involved in long running doping programs, it seems unlikely that it would grab hold of the public's attention in the same way. There's a funny attitude to PEDs in boxing. Most people acknowledge that there's a lot of it going on, but there is very little in the way of momentum to do anything about it.

The overseers of organised sport, regardless of what that sport is, do everything in their power to avoid scandals because scandals scare away advertisers. So any push for greater levels of testing typically has to be done in the face of that opposition. In boxing that opposition comes from the organising bodies, the commissions, and the promoters, all of whom have an interest in preventing, and if it comes to it, covering up drug scandals.

So you have to ask yourself how any progress could ever be made? Realistically it has to come about as the result of external pressure. Fans generally want more to be done, but fans are not an organised lobby group and will for the most part continue to watch regardless of whether or not anything is done. Journalists can try to advance the agenda and a small number do, but ultimately there are significant professional costs to such activity, especially in a sport like boxing that is essentially run by a cartel.

The Networks are really the only organisations within the sport that can apply pressure in this direction, as they are the ones who pay the big bucks for the rights to show fights. But in the end the networks just care about the ratings, and if the fans keep watching, then why would they rock the boat? The get burned by drug scandals just as the promoters do. Why then would it be in their interests to have a fighter who they've spent years building up, torn down by failed drug tests?

For the most part it wouldn't, but you have to hope that over a long enough period of time, enough pressure builds for them to apply some sort of pressure of their own. Maybe if a Pacquiao or a Mayweather type star somehow fails a drug test in the run up to a PPV fight, enough investors get burned for the likes of HBO to take some action.

That's grasping at straws though, because the chances of such megastars failing tests under the pathetic testing regime in place are next to none. In the end, the only way boxing could ever be cleaned up is if the weight of the federal government is put behind such a move. What boxing, and indeed professional sport as a whole, needs is the elevation of doping to a legal status akin to fraud. Only then will the effort to remove doping from sport reach a level of intensity that approaches the intensity with which efforts are being made to get away with it. That's my opinion.

Halloween Jack

Henno30 wrote: »

If you're referring to Gamboa then no, it's not even remotely close. In fact there probably isn't any boxer on the same level of global stardom as Armstrong was, and certainly there's no boxer involved in the same sort of long running saga around this issue.

Even if Pacquiao or Mayweather were found to be involved in long running doping programs, it seems unlikely that it would grab hold of the public's attention in the same way. There's a funny attitude to PEDs in boxing. Most people acknowledge that there's a lot of it going on, but there is very little in the way of momentum to do anything about it.

The overseers of organised sport, regardless of what that sport is, do everything in their power to avoid scandals because scandals scare away advertisers. So any push for greater levels of testing typically has to be done in the face of that opposition. In boxing that opposition comes from the organising bodies, the commissions, and the promoters, all of whom have an interest in preventing, and if it comes to it, covering up drug scandals.

So you have to ask yourself how any progress could ever be made? Realistically it has to come about as the result of external pressure. Fans generally want more to be done, but fans are not an organised lobby group and will for the most part continue to watch regardless of whether or not anything is done. Journalists can try to advance the agenda and a small number do, but ultimately there are significant professional costs to such activity, especially in a sport like boxing that is essentially run by a cartel.

The Networks are really the only organisations within the sport that can apply pressure in this direction, as they are the ones who pay the big bucks for the rights to show fights. But in the end the networks just care about the ratings, and if the fans keep watching, then why would they rock the boat? The get burned by drug scandals just as the promoters do. Why then would it be in their interests to have a fighter who they've spent years building up, torn down by failed drug tests?

For the most part it wouldn't, but you have to hope that over a long enough period of time, enough pressure builds for them to apply some sort of pressure of their own. Maybe if a Pacquiao or a Mayweather type star somehow fails a drug test in the run up to a PPV fight, enough investors get burned for the likes of HBO to take some action.

That's grasping at straws though, because the chances of such megastars failing tests under the pathetic testing regime in place are next to none. In the end, the only way boxing could ever be cleaned up is if the weight of the federal government is put behind such a move. What boxing, and indeed professional sport as a whole, needs is the elevation of doping to a legal status akin to fraud. Only then will the effort to remove doping from sport reach a level of intensity that approaches the intensity with which efforts are being made to get away with it. That's my opinion.

Top post, the Armstrong case is a case in point, lots and loots of people knew the score, and right from his first tour win. He was however a massive pull for cycling so received the acquiescence of the sponsors, journalists, governing bodies etc...

It is a narrative that we may as well get used to as it looks like its repeating itself at the moment, in a few different sports.