Dopers in boxing like Kid Galahad take cheating to a new and deadly level

Updated: 20/11/2024

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On the list of sporting spectacles that should not be on television, there are two events that rank pretty highly: water polo and boxing fights involving dopers. The former was on the BBC website yesterday. The latter is on our screens more often than we would like to think.

We have nothing against water polo – it is clearly a sport that requires high levels of fitness, as the participants are treading water for extended periods of time, while also negotiating opponents and a quickly-moving ball. It is, like angling, chess and golf (the slow-mo 2019 version, anyway), a dreadful spectacle.

We do, however, have an issue with doping boxers. Of course, drugs in sport is never a good thing (with the notable exception of Ross Rebagliati, the Olympic gold medal-winning snowboarder who tested positive for marijuana, but was allowed to keep his title after arguing that it was not performance-enhancing) but in boxing it is particularly disagreeable.

In the poster sports for drug taking – cycling, athletics and weightlifting – the worst that will happen if someone plays dirty is that the watching public will lose belief, advertisers will jump ship and clean athletes will suffer downturns in sponsorship.

In the great scheme of things, it is not catastrophic. Indeed, some say the conversation over drugs in sport is already loud enough to destroy the joy of watching it. We know doping goes on, so why do we need to be constantly reminded?

Free-for-all

Conversely, there have been many bar-room discussions arguing that the whole furore over doping should be rendered redundant by allowing a free-for-all.

In boxing, however, someone could die at the hands of a doper. Imagine the scenario: a fighter takes a short-cut via the pharmacist in order to train harder, they enter the ring knowing they have never punched with such ferocity, they unleash one on an opponent and the unthinkable happens: the opponent never gets up.

But don’t let us be the ones to put fear into your heart. Take it from Josh Warrington, the IBF featherweight world champion, who will fight Kid Galahad in Leeds in June. Galahad (who was born Abdul-Bari Awad but given the nickname of an Elvis Presley film by his trainer) served an 18-month ban in 2016 for Stanozolol, the steroid of choice for Eastern Bloc athletes in the 1970s.

While Galahad insists that “it doesn’t matter what has gone on in the past” and remains adamant that his positive test was the result of a spiked protein shake, Warrington is furious that his opponent is even allowed to fight.

‘Man-to-man combat’

Warrington said: “It’s man-to-man combat and we are going in there to hurt each other. To try and pinch an extra little inch by cheating, especially in a sport as brutal as boxing, is a disgrace. The last thing we need is people trying to gain an extra inch by cheating. The sport does not need that.”

Galahad is not the only tainted boxer fighting this summer. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez – banned for six months for clenbuterol that (he claims) was in some tainted meat – will fight American Daniel Jacobs in May.

Even if Jacobs was not a cancer survivor (he spent 19 months out with bone cancer, before making a comeback in 2012) you’d like to think that the crowd favourite would not be Alvarez, on account of the drug ban. Either way, the fight should not be on television.

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This post first appeared here

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