By Jim Dower: Gennady Golovkin thinks Saul Canelo Alvarez should take a lie detector test bout his positive test for clenbuterol. Canelo blames his positive test on having eaten contaminated meat. Golovkin thinks otherwise. He believes Canelo intentionally used clenbuterol to get a boost up for his May 5th rematch against him at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission is the agency conducting the investigation of Canelo’s positive test. Golovkin feels that the best way of finding out truth is to have Canelo hooked up on a lie detector test. If he is truly innocent, then the lie detector test will bear that out.
Unfortunately, a lie detector test won’t likely be used by the Nevada Commission in their investigation. A lie detector test can be beaten by someone daydreaming, and it can also give inaccurate results for nervous people. A lie detector test simply isn’t accurate enough for it to be useful.
“Get him on a lie detector,” Golovkin said to Lance Pugmire of the LA Times.
Even if Canelo agreed to it, would his promoters at Golden Boy let him do that? If was found to be lying by the lie detector, it would put the Nevada Commission in the position where they’d either ignore the results or act on them and suspend him. Since lie detector tests aren’t part of the Commission’s fact-finding methods, they would probably ignore Canelo failing the test. This would make the Commission look terrible in the eyes of the boxing public, because it would look like Canelo is being given preferential treatment. A lie detector test isn’t perfect though, and that ultimately makes it useless. What’s interesting is that some companies in the U.S use lie detector tests on applicants applying for jobs.
Would Canelo willingly agree to a lie detector test? I can’t see him ever agreeing to that.
If Canelo wanted to score points in the media with boxing fans, he could volunteer to have a lie detector test conducted on him. I think it could end badly if Canelo fails the lie detector test, and then immediately starts saying the test are faulty and not perfect. It would be a real nightmare. It could potentially make Canelo look bad if he failed the test and the boxing public found out about it. If Canelo had a lie detector test done on television, it would probably bring in huge ratings for HBO. That would be interesting for boxing fans. Obviously, it would be a catastrophe if he failed the lie detector, but if he’s innocent and really did test positive from eating contaminated meat, then he might pass the test with flying colors. That would take a load off GGG’s mind if knew that Canelo with being truthful about having eaten contaminated meat.
Canelo could also agree to a hair follicle test. If clenbuterol is used over for extended period, it will accumulate in the user’s hair follicles. Clenbuterol can show up in hair follicles for as long as 6 months or longer, according to Dopeology. If the person ate clenbuterol contaminated meat once, then the drug wouldn’t accumulate in their hair. It’s unclear whether VADA has the ability to take a hair sample from Canelo and test it for clenbuterol. Of course, if VADA had a testing mechanism to test hair follicles of the boxers that test positive, they would have likely done so a long time ago. Having the ability to test hair would help narrow down the drug cheats.
Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez thinks Golovkin is starting to show signs of being nervous about the Canelo fight with the way he’s talking.
“[Golovkin] doesn’t sound like a confident fighter. I guess he has a lot of insecurities.” Gomez said to Lance Pugmire. “[Canelo] is a clean fighter. The facts and statistics back it up. I guess GGG is preparing his excuse in case he was to lose.”
It sounds like Gomez wants Golovkin to be quiet about Canelo’s positive test for clenbuterol. Golovkin has a reason for being upset. If Golovkin has tested positive, Canelo and Golden Boy would likely be furious. It’s natural for a fighter to be upset after learning that his opponent tested positive for using a PED, because they’re the ones that have to face that fighter. Using PEDs isn’t the same thing as loading up your gloves with cement, but if the drug helps a fighter hit harder or fight harder than normal, then it’s understandable why Golovkin would be very upset about with Canelo’s positive test.
Unfortunately, Gomez brings up a good point about Golovkin being able to use Canelo’s positive test for clenbuterol as an excuse if he loses to him. Gomez needs to get used to that, because it’s possible that many fighters will be suspicious of Canelo and use that as excuse. That goes with the territory. It’s unfortunate because now a lot of boxing fans are questioning Canelo’s past wins. It’s like that in baseball as well. After we saw the homerun records erased by power hitters, some of which later tested positive for PEDs, their accomplishments in the past were questioned by fans. Some fans would say, ‘Once a cheat, always a cheat.’ That’s the downside of Canelo testing positive. He’s going to have people questioning whether he was using PEDs in the past.
“They both agreed to [Voluntary Anti-Doping Assn.] testing for the rematch. Is GGG suggesting the program doesn’t work? Makes no sense,” Gomez said.
The testing by VADA, the drug testing agency being used by Canelo and Golovkin for this fight, is working. We saw that with Canelo testing positive. What might not work is the follow up by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. If they fail to come up with a good enough rationale to please the boxing public with the outcome of their investigation, then that’ll be a problem. You can have the best drug testing agencies in the world, but if guilty fighter is able to escape fines and suspensions, then it’s useless.