Hearn was being cute. What would he have said if he was not involved?
Why agreed to something if its results were irrelevant?
If the VADA's results were irrelevant, why did they hide them from the public?
Did Hearn read the " it is not in the interests of boxing" clause? No due process? He had since 23 Sep to engage with BBBoC? It is apparent that the BBBoC only came out after the story was exposed. Thus BBBoC was forced to act as it did due to the adverse publicity.
Why didn't he immediately have the B sample tested?
Without the Daily Mail expose, the biff would have gone ahead. However, Gareth Davies said he also heard a high-level goss on the same day that the story came out.
Where is there is big money involved, there is big......
Doesn't the B sample procedure need a review now, it appears open to exploitation. Dillion Whyte had an issue with a B test that went missing after before and it was glossed over. Two major promoters appear to have condoned profit over a boxer's safety and BBoBC control should be commended, if this fertility drug offered no great benefit why was it banned and why was Connor Benn taking it?.
Yes the B-sample business is a pain. The thing is that according to the WADA protocol an athlete can present evidence to an independent panel to try to show their innocence instead of opening the B-sample. This is only allowed if the drug testing body is affiliated to WADA eg: UKAD & USADA - not VADA.
Dillian Whyte has had a year round VADA contract for years and was tested several times by them during the training camp for the Rivas fight.
When UKAD produced a dirty A-sample from Whyte it just happened that VADA had tested him just before the UKAD test and just after - these two VADA tests were clean. Whyte took this evidence before the independent National Anti-Doping Panel - a body made up of experts in anti-doping - and they agreed with Whyte that this UKAD sample could not be correct because nobody would use a PED for a couple of days if they intended to cheat - therefore the UKAD sample was possibly contamination or a false positive (rare but they can happen).
This is why the B-sample wasn’t analysed - he was clearly not guilty.
Whyte was just lucky that his year round VADA contract produced evidence to question the validity of the UKAD test. Whyte is continually getting stick for this situation but it’s the fans that are in the wrong as they don’t understand the complexities of drug testing.
Do you have any goss how much does a one-year VADA contract cost?
"When UKAD produced a dirty A-sample from Whyte it just happened that VADA had tested him just before the UKAD test and just after - these two VADA tests were clean. "
Perhaps this was why Fast Eddie did not contest Benn's VADA: the UKAD's tests must have been many days off 1 Sep. He must have remembered Whyte's issue - or someone would have reminded him.
Perhaps both parties had Whtye in mind when they insisted on VADA as well to serve as control for the other tester. And to prevent the fighters from gaming the testing cycle. Otherwise it did not make sense to incur additional costs, inconvenience on the fighters and risk of conflicting results.
I wonder would the parties have insisted on VADA if they knew of this outcome?
In general, both UKAD and VADA tests must be reliable enough since not many fighters could prove they were false positive - if they did them using the PCR, the tests mean nothing! - and they have undertaken thousands of tests of many fighters over many years.
Back in 2018 when Canelo was popped for Clenbuterol and the WBC forced him to enroll in a year round VADA contract for a year (he didn't extend the contract beyond a year of course) Canelo paid $50K.
This is according to a Thomas Hauser article about UASADA, VADA & the commissions - the cost is near the bottom of the article though....
I suppose now in 2020 the cost of a year round VADA contract will be even more than $50K, so only the top fighters who are making top money could afford one.
As far as I've been able to find out, only Donaire, Joshua, Whyte & Katie Taylor have these year round VADA contracts - there are many other big fighters who could afford one though such as Canelo, Wilder, Fury etc.
UKAD and VADA are very reliable - false positives or contamination of the sample are very rare but not impossible.
Hearn promotes a lot in the US and is probably used to using VADA - he may also remember how VADA helped prove Whyte's innocence as you say.
The whopping cost, not to mention the inconvenience and embarrassment, is an understandable reason why most fighters are not signed up. It is fair enough that they only sign when they get a huge contract - or supposed to get - like Benn, Eubank, TF, AJ.
There is no way that most biffers can afford VADA.
After I asked you, I saw in the Daily Mail that VADA costs typically 30,000 UK pounds - that are a lot of pesos!
There is a much cheaper and fail-safe solution: three drops of Veritsaseum (joke).
The fact that they did not immediately have the B sample expeditiously tested is telling. It is also telling that the parties did not question the handling of the samples.
Big Dan said, apart from Whyte, 99.99% of B samples showed the same results.
Hearn & Sauerland say they’ve known about the dirty A-sample for weeks. If that’s the case why hasn’t the B-sample result come back yet?
Could it be that the request to have the B-sample analysed was deliberately delayed so that Hearn and Sauerland could use the “due process” excuse to try to convince the BBBofC to not stop the fight.
If this is the case then Hearn and Sauerland were disappointed as the BBBofC stood up to them and should be given credit for doing so.
As Hearn and Sauerland said they knew about the dirty sample weeks ago, the BBBofC may have presumed that they (Hearn & Sauerland) had immediately asked for the B-sample to be analysed and were waiting for the result before acting. When it became clear that there was going to be no B-sample result they acted.
This is supposition as we don’t know the full details but it would explain why they waited until fight week to stop the fight.
As the BBBofC did the opposite of what Hearn and Sauerland wanted I don’t know why you say they didn’t stand up to them - and as I say there may have been a very good reason for them delaying their decision - after all Benn is technically not guilty of anything until the B-sample confirms the A-sample, they were on dodgy legal grounds to stop the fight without the B-sample result.
That Benn evidently thought he needed to take an anti-estrogenic drug (ostensibly to help him bulk up) sort of underscores the point that he never had any business fighting a middleweight/super middleweight opponent like Eubank in the first place. I’m not especially sad about this fight getting called off. Kind of a circus act, in my opinion.
If someone takes PEDs for a particular reason, such as Benn here for this fight, then it seems reasonable to ask if they’ve been taking PEDs for other reasons earlier in their career eg: Conor wanting to replicate his father’s punching power.
Also when someone gets popped for the first time it’s highly unlikely that this just happens to be the first time they’ve used PEDs.
Sorry Barry I can't find a definite answer to your question. However, Hearn seems to like using VADA and so I suppose they could have been used in his other fights.
The difference with this fight is that it was gonna be PPV and so maybe they thought they had plenty of money to cover the cost of the VADA testing - not expecting either of the fighters to be popped though.
Yea Tron after a while all the big fights take on a feeling of a night at the circus. I saw Eubank being interviewed a few days ago or more and he was talking about the fight should be in a bigger venue like a large stadium, well maybe he got his wish ...... us fans get stuck talking more about what could be, what should be, what coulda been then anything else...
What would have happened if the results were reversed and UKAD's was positive instead?
Hi Dan,
Enjoyed the Boxing Social interview you did today! As always, appreciate your efforts and time in covering all of this.
Thank you!
Matchroom just confirmed it is OFF!
I've read it's still on but now you say it's off?
Did Benn use VADA for his most recent fights?
Hearn was being cute. What would he have said if he was not involved?
Why agreed to something if its results were irrelevant?
If the VADA's results were irrelevant, why did they hide them from the public?
Did Hearn read the " it is not in the interests of boxing" clause? No due process? He had since 23 Sep to engage with BBBoC? It is apparent that the BBBoC only came out after the story was exposed. Thus BBBoC was forced to act as it did due to the adverse publicity.
Why didn't he immediately have the B sample tested?
Without the Daily Mail expose, the biff would have gone ahead. However, Gareth Davies said he also heard a high-level goss on the same day that the story came out.
Where is there is big money involved, there is big......
Doesn't the B sample procedure need a review now, it appears open to exploitation. Dillion Whyte had an issue with a B test that went missing after before and it was glossed over. Two major promoters appear to have condoned profit over a boxer's safety and BBoBC control should be commended, if this fertility drug offered no great benefit why was it banned and why was Connor Benn taking it?.
Yes the B-sample business is a pain. The thing is that according to the WADA protocol an athlete can present evidence to an independent panel to try to show their innocence instead of opening the B-sample. This is only allowed if the drug testing body is affiliated to WADA eg: UKAD & USADA - not VADA.
Dillian Whyte has had a year round VADA contract for years and was tested several times by them during the training camp for the Rivas fight.
When UKAD produced a dirty A-sample from Whyte it just happened that VADA had tested him just before the UKAD test and just after - these two VADA tests were clean. Whyte took this evidence before the independent National Anti-Doping Panel - a body made up of experts in anti-doping - and they agreed with Whyte that this UKAD sample could not be correct because nobody would use a PED for a couple of days if they intended to cheat - therefore the UKAD sample was possibly contamination or a false positive (rare but they can happen).
This is why the B-sample wasn’t analysed - he was clearly not guilty.
Whyte was just lucky that his year round VADA contract produced evidence to question the validity of the UKAD test. Whyte is continually getting stick for this situation but it’s the fans that are in the wrong as they don’t understand the complexities of drug testing.
interesting and alarming,
Ozzy,
Do you have any goss how much does a one-year VADA contract cost?
"When UKAD produced a dirty A-sample from Whyte it just happened that VADA had tested him just before the UKAD test and just after - these two VADA tests were clean. "
Perhaps this was why Fast Eddie did not contest Benn's VADA: the UKAD's tests must have been many days off 1 Sep. He must have remembered Whyte's issue - or someone would have reminded him.
Perhaps both parties had Whtye in mind when they insisted on VADA as well to serve as control for the other tester. And to prevent the fighters from gaming the testing cycle. Otherwise it did not make sense to incur additional costs, inconvenience on the fighters and risk of conflicting results.
I wonder would the parties have insisted on VADA if they knew of this outcome?
In general, both UKAD and VADA tests must be reliable enough since not many fighters could prove they were false positive - if they did them using the PCR, the tests mean nothing! - and they have undertaken thousands of tests of many fighters over many years.
Back in 2018 when Canelo was popped for Clenbuterol and the WBC forced him to enroll in a year round VADA contract for a year (he didn't extend the contract beyond a year of course) Canelo paid $50K.
This is according to a Thomas Hauser article about UASADA, VADA & the commissions - the cost is near the bottom of the article though....
https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/54479-the-hauser-report-usada-vada-and-the-state-athletic-commissions
I suppose now in 2020 the cost of a year round VADA contract will be even more than $50K, so only the top fighters who are making top money could afford one.
As far as I've been able to find out, only Donaire, Joshua, Whyte & Katie Taylor have these year round VADA contracts - there are many other big fighters who could afford one though such as Canelo, Wilder, Fury etc.
UKAD and VADA are very reliable - false positives or contamination of the sample are very rare but not impossible.
Hearn promotes a lot in the US and is probably used to using VADA - he may also remember how VADA helped prove Whyte's innocence as you say.
The whopping cost, not to mention the inconvenience and embarrassment, is an understandable reason why most fighters are not signed up. It is fair enough that they only sign when they get a huge contract - or supposed to get - like Benn, Eubank, TF, AJ.
There is no way that most biffers can afford VADA.
After I asked you, I saw in the Daily Mail that VADA costs typically 30,000 UK pounds - that are a lot of pesos!
There is a much cheaper and fail-safe solution: three drops of Veritsaseum (joke).
The fact that they did not immediately have the B sample expeditiously tested is telling. It is also telling that the parties did not question the handling of the samples.
Big Dan said, apart from Whyte, 99.99% of B samples showed the same results.
Hearn & Sauerland say they’ve known about the dirty A-sample for weeks. If that’s the case why hasn’t the B-sample result come back yet?
Could it be that the request to have the B-sample analysed was deliberately delayed so that Hearn and Sauerland could use the “due process” excuse to try to convince the BBBofC to not stop the fight.
If this is the case then Hearn and Sauerland were disappointed as the BBBofC stood up to them and should be given credit for doing so.
If Hearn et al had a whiff, however tinny, they would have paid big dollars to have the B sample tested expeditiously. They did not.
Hearn is a good spinner. However, he needs a decent wicket!
We need to feel for all the fighters involved, especially those lowly paid ones - they lost big time!
BBBoC did not stand up to Hearn et al until it was forced to.
We are commenting without the full information.
As Hearn and Sauerland said they knew about the dirty sample weeks ago, the BBBofC may have presumed that they (Hearn & Sauerland) had immediately asked for the B-sample to be analysed and were waiting for the result before acting. When it became clear that there was going to be no B-sample result they acted.
This is supposition as we don’t know the full details but it would explain why they waited until fight week to stop the fight.
As the BBBofC did the opposite of what Hearn and Sauerland wanted I don’t know why you say they didn’t stand up to them - and as I say there may have been a very good reason for them delaying their decision - after all Benn is technically not guilty of anything until the B-sample confirms the A-sample, they were on dodgy legal grounds to stop the fight without the B-sample result.
That Benn evidently thought he needed to take an anti-estrogenic drug (ostensibly to help him bulk up) sort of underscores the point that he never had any business fighting a middleweight/super middleweight opponent like Eubank in the first place. I’m not especially sad about this fight getting called off. Kind of a circus act, in my opinion.
Whoa. We should only discuss issues; not judging Benn as yet.
(If he cannot satisfactorily prove his innocence, some will probably call him Clomi Benn.)
If someone takes PEDs for a particular reason, such as Benn here for this fight, then it seems reasonable to ask if they’ve been taking PEDs for other reasons earlier in their career eg: Conor wanting to replicate his father’s punching power.
Also when someone gets popped for the first time it’s highly unlikely that this just happens to be the first time they’ve used PEDs.
Did Benn use VADA for his most recent fights?
Sorry Barry I can't find a definite answer to your question. However, Hearn seems to like using VADA and so I suppose they could have been used in his other fights.
The difference with this fight is that it was gonna be PPV and so maybe they thought they had plenty of money to cover the cost of the VADA testing - not expecting either of the fighters to be popped though.
Yea Tron after a while all the big fights take on a feeling of a night at the circus. I saw Eubank being interviewed a few days ago or more and he was talking about the fight should be in a bigger venue like a large stadium, well maybe he got his wish ...... us fans get stuck talking more about what could be, what should be, what coulda been then anything else...