By Dan Ambrose: Former four division world champion Erik Morales could receive a 2-year suspension from boxing by the Anti-Doping Agency for Morales testing positive for a banned substance from his 4th round TKO loss to WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last October.
Morales has until February 18th to notify the USADA to let them know whether he’ll contest this, according to RingTV. The problem is the USADA reportedly doesn’t have the power to give out bans for fighters, so it’s an empty ban by them.
The ban doesn’t hold in Mexico, which is where Morales plans on fighting one more time before he retires, and it doesn’t have in any weight in the U.S either because the sanctioning bodies and the boxing commissions haven’t agreed to it.
If Morales did decide to fight a final time in the U.S states, for example, in Nevada, he would have to meet before the Nevada Commission to discuss the results of his positive test. However, Morales doesn’t plan fighting in the U.S, so it’s all meaningless.
Morales, 36, has lost three out of his last four fights since 2010, and he’s clearly at the end of his career. He doesn’t have the size to compete at light welterweight, and he can’t get back down to super bantamweight, which is where he found most of his success during his 20-year pro career. Morales had epic battles against Marco Antonio Barrera, and he also defeated Manny Pacquiao before he started having problems with weight.
Pacquiao was no match for a prime Morales and it was impressive watching Morales dominate him. After that fight, Morales began to have chronic weight problems that eventually led to him retiring from boxing. When Morales did make a comeback in 2010 after a three year retirement, he was only a shell of his former self.
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