Floyd Mayweather Jr Questions if Canelo Alvarez is on Steroids
While he is officially retired from boxing, Floyd “Money’ Mayweather Jr (50-0, 27 KO’s) is anything but done with the sport itself. When he put down his boxing gloves, Money then plucked up his promoter hat. When recently serving in that latter capacity, while promoting his charge, regular WBA lightweight champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis, Mayweather took the time to field questions from the media. During that Q&A ,the former boxing cash cow made a few inflammatory statements about undisputed super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KO’s).
Without question, it will not go unnoticed that Money heavily insinuated that Canelo was using steroids. Going a step further, Mayweather felt that most of his accomplishments should be held in skepticism due to not knowing when he was and wasn’t a clean fighter. The Mexican superstar was busted for having the banned substance clenbuterol in his system back in 2017, although the matter was essentially swept under the rug. The fact that the redhead had an illegal substance in his system was verified, however he was given a free pass. Due to the high amount of Mexican athletes popping dirty after eating local meat, Canelo was basically given the benefit of the doubt.
“But what we don’t talk about is Canelo, Canelo, Canelo, steroids, steroids, steroids! They don’t talk about that! So, we don’t know all the fighters that he beat and he could have not been clean in a lot of fights!”
ONE LIE SPOILS A THOUSAND TRUTHS
The story would get a bit more suspicious a bit later down the line. This is because presently Canelo’s head coach, Eddy Reynoso, now has a total of four fighters who have been busted for PED’s. No matter how you slice it, that is a hefty amount of boxers from one camp coming up dirty. The last fighter caught with enhancements flowing through their veins was WBC super featherweight champion Oscar Valdez.
Even this situation was made more suspicious when Valdez claimed to be completely ignorant of anything related to any illegal substances. One would think that at least Reynoso, with so many of his own fighters having been affected, would be able to give him some pointers on the matter. Despite his accusations however, Mayweather insists that his comments do not stem from a place of malice. After all, the grand amount of attention and concern about doping in boxing is largely due to Money himself.
“A lot of times they are going to keep asking me about the Canelo fight and I already know when they write about it the headline will make it seem extremely bad, seem like it’s a beef. It’s not a beef! I like Canelo, I like his work.”
DOWN THE LINE
The issue was certainly not at the forefront of the sport until Mayweather demanded that Manny Pacquiao submit to a more rigorous level of testing. The request was met by drastically different responses. Some praised Mayweather for thinking about the safety of the sport, while others accused him of making excuses and ducking Pacquiao. Regardless of how anyone felt at the time, there is no denying that since then, it’s been proven that illegal drugs are a huge problem in the sport.
Moving forward, it will be very interesting to see how Canelo Alvarez reacts and responds to this new thinly veiled accusation. It will also be a very scandalous story if any more of Reynoso’s fighters are flagged for PED’s. Let’s just wait and see what the future holds in store.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
By: Bakari Simpson
Be the first to comment