`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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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

2 days ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

Gabriela-Fundora-KOs-Marilyn-Badillo-and-Perez-Upsets-Conwell-in-Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.

Will it be her last flyweight defense?

Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.

Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.

The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.

Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.

Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.

In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.

Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.

Perez Beats Conwell.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.

It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.

Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.

Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.

Other Bouts

Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.

It was very close.

Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.

Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.

One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.

Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.

Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.

Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

3 days ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Krusher-Kovalev-Exits-on-a-Winning-Note-TKOs-Artur-Mann-in-his-Farewell-Fight

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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