`Big Baby’ Mess is Proof of Bigger PEDs Problem Than Most Would Care to Admit

Published

6 years ago

April 22, 2019

And then there were 71 … or maybe 710, if the alarmists are to be believed.

With the three positive tests that have served to knock Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller out of his scheduled June 1 challenge of IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua at Madison Square Garden – hopefully, we won’t see Miller in any bout for the foreseeable future – the ugly head of performance-enhancing drugs has again arisen in boxing. Until more drastic steps are taken to correct the problem, such as longer suspensions, hefty fines and even permanent expulsion, cheaters who think they can get away with creating an edge for themselves through chemistry will forever conspire to erode the public’s faith in the notion of legitimate, unsullied competition in the ring.

Almost as disturbing as Miller’s flagrant flouting of the rules of boxing, as well as of common decency – hey, it’s hard to argue that a mistake was made when you test dirty three times in quick succession, and for three different banned substances – is the fact that another certified PEDs violator, Manuel Charr, was quick to nominate himself as the most logical available candidate for replace “Big Baby” in the corner opposite Joshua six weeks hence.

“I have been training since January,” the 37-year-old Charr (31-4, 17 KOs) said when his hoped-for window of opportunity opened after Miller’s boxing license was pulled by the New York State Athletic Commission, itself hardly a bastion of competence and integrity. “I was tested by VADA and can prove that I am clean. I am ready, willing and able to challenge Joshua on June 1 at the Garden.”

But, to my way of thinking, Charr’s claims to have scrubbed off any lingering taint from his recent PEDs past is coming too soon to merit consideration for a high-interest, well-paying (Miller was to make a career-high $4.875 million for the dream shot he may never get again) gig against Joshua. It was barely a year ago that Charr, just a few days before a scheduled fight for the “regular” WBA championship against the aged Fres Oquendo in September 2018, tested positive for Drostanolone and Trenbolone, both banned substances. The fight was called off, and rightly so. If the powers that be were truly serious about eradicating the PEDs problem, a dirty fighter would not be in the mix for a world title bout, and maybe any fight, little more than a year after twice testing positive.

To determine to my own satisfaction how deep the issue goes, I did an Internet search to find out how many fighters had worn or are wearing the scarlet letter “D” for drug violations. The criteria for such a designation is four-fold: 1. Fighters who had been suspended by a sporting body (an international governing body, a national federation or a professional league) for illegal PEDs and/or banned drug use; 2. Publicly admitted such use; 3. Been found to have taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs by a court of law; 4. Been suspended by a sporting body for failure to submit to mandatory drug testing.

There are now 71 names on the list of fighters who met one or more of criteria, 18 of whom are heavyweights. But it’s not just the number of miscreants that is disturbing; it’s the level of their achievement in the sport that casts a long shadow not only in the here and now, but into the future. With the addition of Miller, the Who’s Who of tainted heavyweights includes Evander Holyfield, Vitali Klitschko, Tyson Fury, Tommy Morrison, Francois Botha, Roy Jones Jr. (OK, so he had only one fight as a heavyweight, but it was for a world title and he won), James Toney, Shannon Briggs, Chris Arreola, Alexander Povetkin, Luis Ortiz, Dillian Whyte, Jameel McCline, Bermane Stiverne, Erkan Teper, Mariusz Wach and Andrzej Wawrzyk.

That’s quite a group. It features eight fighters who were heavyweight champions, six more who fought for the title and still another, Miller, who was to have fought for the title until he got caught, in a manner of speaking, holding a dripping syringe.

Boxing greatness, of course, is much harder to tarnish that than in baseball, where Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro have been denied induction into their sport’s Hall of Fame because of proven or even widely suspected PEDs use. Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson also have been denied enshrinement in Cooperstown, N.Y., because of gambling, a vice, including the throwing of fixed fights, that hasn’t kept several standout fighters out of Cooperstown’s equivalent place of honor in Canastota, N.Y. Holyfield and Vitali Klitscko have plaques hanging in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and Jones and Toney almost certainly will have theirs on those hallowed walls as soon as they become eligible, with Fury also a strong candidate for eventually getting there.

But it isn’t the names of fighters who have been associated with PEDs that is as much a concern as the names of countless others that might have crossed over onto the dark side and never been caught. Consider some downright scary numbers. On Sept. 7 on this website, Thomas Hauser authored a story entitled 1,501 Tests, One Reported Positive? What’s Going On With USADA and Boxing? By comparison, Dr. Margaret Goodman, president of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA), reported that close to 4 percent of the tests for illegal PEDs conducted by VADA came back positive. That 4 percent benchmark if applied to the 1,501 tests conducted by the USADA would have resulted in 60 positive tests results.

Although testing for PEDs is more extensive and accurate than ever, it is also true that whenever a better mousetrap is invented, the mice get smarter when it comes to making off with the cheese. New drugs, less easily detectable, are constantly being whipped up in basement laboratories by enterprising chemists, who also busy themselves concocting better masking agents. Victor Conte, disgraced founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) that was a focal point of the late-1990s/early 2000s baseball PEDs scandal, spent four months in 2006 and upon his release he became a crusader not only for cleansing baseball of the scourge of PEDs, but all sports. Whatever victories are achieved on that front, however, are matched by setbacks elsewhere. It should be noted that Conte once noted that boxing, more so than other sports which are more stringently regulated, was the “wild, wild West” of PEDs, a frontier that has yet to be fully tamed.

The task confronting the most relentless and vigilant members of the clean-up crew need only to point to Alexander Povetkin as a reason why fighters like Miller feel it is worth the fairly slim risk of being detected to go the PEDs route.

Povetkin, a Russian, was to have challenged WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder on May 21, 2016, in Moscow until he tested positive for a banned substance, Meldonium. A follow-up, or “B” test, also conducted by VADA came back positive as well and the fight was scrapped, much to the consternation of Team Wilder. The super heavyweight gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Povetkin is regarded in some circles as almost a petri dish of chemical enhancement because of Russia’s tacit, and possibly outright, involvement in PEDs in quest for nationalistic glory through sports. Consider the 2014 Winter Olympics staged in Sochi, Russia, the most expensive Olympiad ever at a staggering cost of $51 billion and the pet project of Russian president Vladimir Putin. So pervasive was Russia’s involvement in PEDs that all 389 Olympic athletes from that country initially were banned from competing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, although the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) eventually relented and allowed 271, including all 11 boxers, to participate.

Despite Povetkin’s twice testing positive, he was given a virtual slap on the wrist by the WBC, which cut his indefinite suspension for doping to one year before reconsidering again and giving him a get-out-of-jail-even-earlier card. Povetkin, a former WBA heavyweight titlist, stopped Johann Duhaupas in six rounds on Dec. 17, 2016, tacked on three victories after that and he again fought for the world championship on Sept. 22 of last year, losing on a seventh-round TKO to Joshua in London’s Wembley Stadium.

Possibly believing that whatever masking agents he might have used would fool VADA testers, Miller – who had weighed 300-plus pounds for his three most recent fights – instead drew a triple whammy. His first failed drug test was for GW1516, which is said to increase aerobic power and endurance in the obese and elderly. Seeing as how Miller doesn’t turn 31 until July 15, it is reasonable to conclude his objective had more to do with his high body-fat percentage than the number of candles on his next birthday cake.

Miller at first vehemently denied partaking of any performance-enhancing drug, but when a subsequent re-testing came up positive for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and Erythropoietin (EPO), he changed tactics and basically begged for forgiveness in the court of public opinion and from whichever drug-testing entities and sanctioning bodies might be disposed to cut him a Povetkin-sized break.

“This is your boy, `Big Baby’ Miller here,” he said in a video posted on social media. “A lot can be said right now. I gonna get straight to the point. I messed up. I messed up. I made a bad call. A lot of ways to handle a situation, (but) I handled it wrongly and I’m paying the price for it. Missed out on a big opportunity, and I’m hurtin’ on the inside. My heart is bleeding right now.

“I hurt my family, my friends, my team, my supporters. But I’m gonna own up to it, I’m gonna deal with it, I’m gonna correct it and I’m gonna come back better.”

No doubt Miller is sorry – that he got caught. He had been caught doing PEDs before, in 2014, when he was into kickboxing. He sure as hell wouldn’t have been sorry had he somehow masked his PEDs to get past the VADA testers and, as a better boxer through chemistry, upset Joshua. He would have accepted any praise and rewards as his just due.

Here’s hoping Miller, a Brooklyn native, gets hit with a minimum two-year suspension that sticks, and he comes away with the realization that just because a lot of people cheat and cut corners that doesn’t make it right.

Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport, told ESPN that his fighter will go ahead and make his U.S. debut as scheduled on June 1 against a yet-unnamed opponent whose qualifications must include one absolutely essential attribute.

“It worried me that fighters feel the only way they can beat AJ is by taking banned substances,” Hearn said. “One thing we know is Miller is out. AJ’s new opponent for June 1 will be announced (this) week. Clean fighters only need apply.”

Here’s hoping also that there is a lesson to be learned here, and more fighters come to understand that PEDs are not their ticket to dream fulfillment. Sometimes the flip side of a dream is a very real nightmare.

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Thomas Hauser’s Literary Notes: Johnny Greaves Tells a Sad Tale

Published

20 hours ago

May 11, 2025

Thomas Hauser

Johnny Greaves was a professional loser. He had one hundred professional fights between 2007 and 2013, lost 96 of them, scored one knockout, and was stopped short of the distance twelve times. There was no subtlety in how his role was explained to him: “Look, Johnny; professional boxing works two ways. You’re either a ticket-seller and make money for the promoter, in which case you get to win fights. If you don’t sell tickets but can look after yourself a bit, you become an opponent and you fight to lose.”

By losing, he could make upwards of one thousand pounds for a night‘s work.

Greaves grew up with an alcoholic father who beat his children and wife. Johnny learned how to survive the beatings, which is what his career as a fighter would become. He was a scared, angry, often violent child who was expelled from school and found solace in alcohol and drugs.

The fighters Greaves lost to in the pros ran the gamut from inept local favorites to future champions Liam Walsh, Anthony Crolla, Lee Selby, Gavin Rees, and Jack Catterall. Alcohol and drugs remained constants in his life. He fought after drinking, smoking weed, and snorting cocaine on the night before – and sometimes on the day of – a fight. On multiple occasions, he came close to committing suicide. His goal in boxing ultimately became to have one hundred professional fights.

On rare occasions, two professional losers – “journeymen,” they’re called in The UK – are matched against each other. That was how Greaves got three of the four wins on his ledger. On September 29, 2013, he fought the one hundredth and final fight of his career against Dan Carr in London’s famed York Hall. Carr had a 2-42-2 ring record and would finish his career with three wins in ninety outings. Greaves-Carr was a fight that Johnny could win. He emerged triumphant on a four-round decision.

The Johnny Greaves Story, told by Greaves with the help of Adam Darke (Pitch Publishing) tells the whole sordid tale. Some of Greaves’s thoughts follow:

* “We all knew why we were there, and it wasn’t to win. The home fighters were the guys who had sold all the tickets and were deemed to have some talent. We were the scum. We knew our role. Give some young prospect a bit of a workout, keep out of the way of any big shots, lose on points but take home a wedge of cash, and fight again next week.”

* “If you fought too hard and won, then you wouldn’t get booked for any more shows. If you swung for the trees and got cut or knocked out, then you couldn’t fight for another 28 days. So what were you supposed to do? The answer was to LOOK like you were trying to win but be clever in the process. Slip and move, feint, throw little shots that were rangefinders, hold on, waste time. There was an art to this game, and I was quickly learning what a cynical business it was.”

* “The unknown for the journeyman was always how good your opponent might be. He could be a future world champion. Or he might be some hyped-up nightclub bouncer with a big following who was making lots of money for the promoter.”

* “No matter how well I fought, I wasn’t going to be getting any decisions. These fights weren’t scored fairly. The referees and judges understood who the paymasters were and they played the game. What was the point of having a go and being the best version of you if nobody was going to recognize or reward it?”

* “When I first stepped into the professional arena, I believed I was tough. believed that nobody could stop me. But fight by fight, those ideas were being challenged and broken down. Once you know that you can be hurt, dropped and knocked out, you’re never quite the same fighter.”

* “I had started off with a dream, an idea of what boxing was and what it would do for me. It was going to be a place where I could prove my toughness. A place that I could escape to and be someone else for a while. For a while, boxing was that place. But it wore me down to the point that I stopped caring. I’d grown sick and tired of it all. I wished that I could feel pride at what I’d achieved. But most of the time, I just felt like a loser.”

* “The fights were getting much more difficult, the damage to my body and my psyche taking longer and longer to repair after each defeat. I was putting myself in more and more danger with each passing fight. I was getting hurt more often and stopped more regularly. Even with the 28-day [suspensions], I didn’t have time to heal. I was staggering from one fight to the next and picking up more injuries along the way.”

* “I was losing my toughness and resilience. When that’s all you’ve ever had, it’s a hard thing to accept. Drink and drugs had always been present in my life. But now they became a regular part of my pre-fight preparation. It helped to shut out the fear and quieted the thoughts and worries that I shouldn’t be doing this anymore.”

* “My body was broken. My hands were constantly sore with blisters and cuts. I had early arthritis in my hip and my teeth were a mess. I looked an absolute state and inside I felt worse. But I couldn’t stop fighting yet. Not before the 100.”

* “I had abused myself time after time and stood in front of better men, taking a beating when I could have been sensible and covered up. At the start, I was rarely dropped or stopped. Now it was becoming a regular part of the game. Most of the guys I was facing were a lot better than me. This was mainly about survival.”

* “Was my brain f***ed from taking too many punches? I knew it was, to be honest. I could feel my speech changing and memory going. I was mentally unwell and shouldn’t have been fighting but the promoters didn’t care. Johnny Greaves was still a good booking. Maybe an even better one now that he might get knocked out.”

* “Nobody gave a f*** about me and whether I lived or died. I didn’t care about that much either. But the thought of being humiliated, knocked out in front of all those people; that was worse than the thought of dying. The idea of being exposed for what I was – a nobody.”

* “I was a miserable bastard in real life. A depressive downbeat mouthy little f***er. Everything I’ve done has been to mask the feeling that I’m worthless. That I have no value. The drinks and the drugs just helped me to forget that for a while. I still frighten myself a lot. My thoughts scare me. Do I really want to be here for the next thirty or forty years? I don’t know. If suicide wasn’t so impactful on people around you, I would have taken that leap. I don’t enjoy life and never have.”

So . . . Any questions?

****

Steve Albert was Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator for two decades. But his reach extended far beyond boxing.

Albert’s sojourn through professional sports began in high school when he was a ball boy for the New York Knicks. Over the years, he was behind the microphone for more than a dozen teams in eleven leagues including four NBA franchises.

Putting the length of that trajectory in perspective . . . As a ballboy, Steve handed bottles of water and towels to a Knicks back-up forward named Phil Jackson. Later, they worked together as commentators for the New Jersey Nets. Then Steve provided the soundtrack for some of Jackson’s triumphs when he won eleven NBA championships as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.

It’s also a matter of record that Steve’s oldest brother, Marv, was arguably the greatest play-by-play announcer in NBA history. And brother Al enjoyed a successful career behind the microphone after playing professional hockey.

Now Steve has written a memoir titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Broadcast Booth. Those who know him know that Steve doesn’t like to say bad things about people. And he doesn’t here. Nor does he delve into the inner workings of sports media or the sports dream machine. The book is largely a collection of lighthearted personal recollections, although there are times when the gravity of boxing forces reflection.

“Fighters were unlike any other professional athletes I had ever encountered,” Albert writes. “Many were products of incomprehensible backgrounds, fiercely tough neighborhoods, ghettos and, in some cases, jungles. Some got into the sport because they were bullied as children. For others, boxing was a means of survival. In many cases, it was an escape from a way of life that most people couldn’t even fathom.”

At one point, Steve recounts a ringside ritual that he followed when he was behind the microphone for Showtime Boxing: “I would precisely line up my trio of beverages – coffee, water, soda – on the far edge of the table closest to the ring apron. Perhaps the best advice I ever received from Ferdie [broadcast partner Ferdie Pacheco] was early on in my blow-by-blow career – ‘Always cover your coffee at ringside with an index card unless you like your coffee with cream, sugar, and blood.’”

Writing about the prelude to the infamous Holyfield-Tyson “bite fight,” Albert recalls, “I remember thinking that Tyson was going to do something unusual that night. I had this sinking feeling in my gut that he was going to pull something exceedingly out of the ordinary. His grousing about Holyfield’s head butts in the first fight added to my concern. [But] nobody could have foreseen what actually happened. Had I opened that broadcast with, ‘Folks, tonight I predict that Mike Tyson will bite off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear,’ some fellas in white coats might have approached me and said, ‘Uh, Steve, could you come with us.'”

And then there’s my favorite line in the book: “I once asked a fighter if he was happily married,” Albert recounts. “He said, ‘Yes, but my wife’s not.'”

“All I ever wanted was to be a sportscaster,” Albert says in closing. “I didn’t always get it right, but I tried to do my job with honesty and integrity. For forty-five years, calling games was my life. I think it all worked out.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – The Most Honest Sport: Two More Years Inside Boxing – will be published this month and is available for preorder at:

https://www.amazon.com/Most-Honest-Sport-Inside-Boxing/dp/1955836329

In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Argentina’s Fernando Martinez Wins His Rematch with Kazuto Ioka

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Argentina's-Fernando-Martinez-Wins-His-Rematch-with-Kazuto-Ioka

In an excellent fight climaxed by a furious 12^th round, Argentina’s Fernando Daniel Martinez came off the deck to win his rematch with Kazuto Ioka and retain his piece of the world 115-pound title. The match was staged at Ioka’s familiar stomping grounds, the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.

In their first meeting on July 7 of last year in Tokyo, Martinez was returned the winner on scores of 117-111, 116-112, and a bizarre 120-108. The rematch was slated for late December, but Martinez took ill a few hours before the weigh-in and the bout was postponed.

The 33-year-old Martinez, who came in sporting a 17-0 (9) record, was a 7-2 favorite to win the sequel, but there were plenty of reasons to favor Ioka, 36, aside from his home field advantage. The first Japanese male fighter to win world titles in four weight classes, Ioka was 3-0 in rematches and his long-time trainer Ismael Salas was on a nice roll. Salas was 2-0 last weekend in Times Square, having handled upset-maker Rolly Romero and Reito Tsutsumi who was making his pro debut.

But the fourth time was not a charm for Ioka (31-4-1) who seemingly pulled the fight out of the fire in round 10 when he pitched the Argentine to the canvas with a pair of left hooks, but then wasn’t able to capitalize on the momentum swing.

Martinez set a fast pace and had Ioka fighting off his back foot for much of the fight. Beginning in round seven, Martinez looked fatigued, but the Argentine was conserving his energy for the championship rounds. In the end, he won the bout on all three cards: 114-113, 116-112, 117-110.

Up next for Fernando Martinez may be a date with fellow unbeaten Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, the lineal champion at 115. San Antonio’s Rodriguez is a huge favorite to keep his title when he defends against South Africa’s obscure Phumelela Cafu on July 19 in Frisco, Texas.

As for Ioka, had he won today’s rematch, that may have gotten him over the hump in so far as making it into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. True, winning titles in four weight classes is no great shakes when the bookends are only 10 pounds apart, but Ioka is still a worthy candidate.

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Emanuel Navarrete Survives a Bloody Battle with Charly Suarez in San Diego

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2025

David A. Avila

Emanuel-Navarrete-Survives-a-Bloody-Battle-with-Charly-Suarez-in-San-Diego

In a torrid battle Mexico’s Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete and his staccato attack staved off the herky-jerky non-stop assaults of Philippine’s Charly Suarez to win by technical decision and retain the WBO super feather world title on Saturday.

What do they feed these guys?

Navarrete (40-2-1, 32 KOs) and his elongated arms managed to connect enough to compensate against the surprising Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs) who wowed the crowd at Pechanga Arena in San Diego.

An accidental clash of heads opened a cut on the side of Navarrete’s left eye and forced a stoppage midway through the fight.

From the opening round Navarrete used his windmill style of attack with punches from different angles that caught Suarez multiple times early. It did not matter. Suarez fired back with impunity and was just as hungry to punch it out with the Mexican fighter.

It was savage.

Every time Navarrete connected solidly, he seemed to pause and check out the damage. Bad idea. Suarez would immediately counter with bombs of his own and surprise the champion with his resilience and tenacity.

Wherever they found Suarez they should look for more, because the Filipino fighter from Manila was ferocious and never out of his depth.

Around the sixth round the Mexican fighter seemed a little drained and puzzled at the tireless attacks coming from Suarez. During an exchange of blows a cut opened up on Navarrete and it was ruled an accidental clash of heads by the referee. Blood streamed down the side of Navarrete’s face and it was cleared by the ringside physician.

But at the opening of the eighth round, the fight was stopped and the ringside physician ruled the cut was too bad to continue. The California State Athletic Commission looked at tape of the round when the cut opened to decipher if it was an accidental butt or a punch that caused the cut. It was unclear so the referee’s call of accidental clash of heads stood as the final ruling.

Score cards from the judges saw Navarrete the winner by scores of 78-75, 77-76 twice. He retains the WBO title.

Interim IBF Lightweight Title

The sharp-shooting Raymond “Danger” Muratalla (23-0, 17 KOs) maneuvered past Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-2, 12 KOs) by unanimous decision to win the interim IBF lightweight title after 12 rounds.

Both fighters were strategic in their approach with Muratalla switching from orthodox to southpaw at various times of the fight. Neither fighter was ever able to dominant any round.

Defense proved the difference between the two lightweights. Muratalla was able to slip more blows than Abdullaev and that proved the difference. The fighter from Fontana, California was able to pierce Abdullaev’s guard more often than not, especially with counter punches.

Abdullaev was never out of the fight. The Russian fighter was able to change tactics and counter the counters midway through the fight. It proved effective especially to the body. But it was not enough to offset Muratalla’s accuracy.

There were no knockdowns and after 12 rounds the judges scored it 118-110, 119-109 twice for Muratalla who now becomes the mandatory for the IBF lightweight title should Vasyl Lomachenko return to defend it.

Muratalla was brief.

“He was a tough fighter,” said Muratalla. “My defense is something I work on a lot.”

Perla Wins

Super flyweight Perla Bazaldua (2-0) eased past Mona Ward (0-2) with a polished display of fighting at length and inside.

Combination punching and defense allowed Bazaldua to punch in-between Ward’s attacks and force the St. Louis fighter to clinch repeatedly. But Ward hung in there despite taking a lot of blows. After four rounds the Los Angeles-based Bazaldua was scored the winner 40-36 on all three cards. Bazaldua signed a long term contract with Top Rank in March.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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