Lucian Bute fails drug test for Badou Jack fight

By Boxing News - 05/26/2016 - Comments

Image: Lucian Bute fails drug test for Badou Jack fight

By Jeff Aranow: Former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (32-3-1, 25 KOs) has tested positive for the banned substance Ostarine [also known as Enobosarm] from his last fight WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack on April 30 at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. The Jack vs. Bute fight was scored a 12 round draw.

The 36-year-old Bute tested positive in the post-fight drug test for the Ostarine substance. The World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman has already sent a press release to the media on Thursday letting them know of the positive drug test for Bute.

The fight result of the Bute-Jack fight will likely be changed to a no contest now to reflect the positive drug test from Bute. The World Boxing Council and the Washington Athletic Commission will be the ones that make that decision.

Bute fought well against Badou Jack, and outworked him through much of the fight. Oddly enough, the final punch stats didn’t reflect that Bute had been the busier fighter of the two, but it clearly looked to many boxing fans that Bute was throwing and landing many more punches than Jack. Bute fought like the fighter he’d been years earlier. It was an impressive performance from him.

Here’s what is said on Wikipedia about the banned substance Enobosarm that Bute tested positive for:

“Enobosarm (also known as ostarine) is an investigational selective androgen receptor modulator for treatment of conditions such as muscle wasting and osteoporosis. Selective androgen receptor modulators may be used by athletes to assist in training and increase physical stamina and fitness, potentially producing effects similar to anabolic steroids. For this reason, SARMs were banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency in January 2008.”

The positive test for Bute could result in him being fined and suspended in addition to his draw with Jack being changed to a no contest. Need to say, this is bad news for Bute, because he’d done well in his last two fights against Jack and James DeGale.

Bute lost to DeGale by a 12 round unanimous decision in November of last year, but the fight was a lot closer the scores handed down. Bute fought DeGale almost well enough to deserve a draw. Bute fought much better against DeGale and Jack than he had in his performances against Jean Pascal, Carl Froch and Denis Grachev.

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Bute had seemingly turned back the clock on his career with his last two fights against DeGale and Jack. Now with the positive test for the banned substance Ostarine, it’s going to cause some boxing fans to wonder whether Bute was using a banned substance for his fight against DeGale.

The Bute vs. Jack fight was scored 117-111 for Jack, and 114-114, 114-114. The fight appeared to be a draw. The judge that scored it 117-111 seemed to give Bute no credit for all the punches he was landing and the pressure he was putting on Jack. Bute looked like the better fighter in the second half of the contest. Jack and his promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. both complained after the fight that they felt that they had won against Bute. The judges, at least two of them, felt differently.