Deontay Wilder vs. Alexander Povetkin: Why was it postponed?

By Boxing News - 05/15/2016 - Comments

povetkin100By Gerardo Granados: It was reported that heavyweight contender Alexander Povetkin tested positive to a banned substance previous his scheduled fight against WBC heavyweight belt holder Deontay Wilder. Meldonium is the name of the substance and I guess that the reader and I don’t know much about it, but if it is banned, then there should have been a good reason to do so.

After that news was known, it was then announced that the fight was going to be postponed.

I asked the WBC and to his President Don Mauricio Sulaiman that same question. But I received no answer.

We don’t live in a perfect world, to expect Corporate Boxing to be perfect, is just like to pretend the utopia of living in a world, in which we the people would have the control instead of it being held by other entities.

Professional Boxing nurtures itself not from boxing fans that pay to watch, but from the fighters, from all those men and women, who decided to become prize fighters. It is them, who we the fight fans follow, not the promoters, boxing organizations or major media covering pro boxing.

If we truly want to clean pro boxing, then we should accept the unwanted consequences, be it long suspensions or even to cancel a big fight which can involve millions of notes in revenues. I want to make clear that I am in favor of testing, but I am against of playing games when it comes to apply the rules.

If a fighter gets caught after the fight, he will probably lose his purse, or if he won the fight it might be changed to a no decision and if he won a title, then he will lose it too. The recent case of Lucas Browne is just an example. But in this case the fight already took place so, the business is done, TV aired the bout, the venue was sold, hotels, restaurants, bars, taxi drivers all got a piece of the action.

But what happens when the boxer test positive one week before the fight? Should there be any kind of arrangement, such as when one boxer fails to make the division weight limit?

When Erik Morales tested positive by the USADA for Clenbuterol previous his second bout against Danny Garcia, the fight did took place because the B sample result could not be obtained before the fight date.

Either the field is leveled and there is a clear list of substances available to use or none are permitted.