Notebook: Benn back in U.S. to fight, but not where he wants to be
Overtime's OTX set for 8 events this year; Matchroom Boxing revives 'Prizefighter' tournament; 2 world title bouts for Loma-Kambosos card; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Welterweight Conor Benn remains stuck in something of a boxing purgatory.
While he is licensed to the fight in the United States, he remains unable to get one to fight at home in England, which is where he can do big business in major fights on pay-per-view.
The reason is due to his heavily publicized doping scandal in which Benn failed two Voluntary Anti-Doping Association tests for the banned performance-enhancing drug Clomiphene with the second result coming to light a few days before he was set for a major pay-per-view bout against Chris Eubank Jr. on Oct. 8, 2022.
The show was canceled and Benn has been in a battle with the British Boxing Board of Control and United Kingdom Anti-Doping since. While his provisional U.K. suspension was lifted by the country’s National Anti-Doping Panel because of a technicality, the BBBofC and UKAD appealed the decision and a hearing is slated for later this month.
Until then, Benn was forced to take his show on the road if he wanted to box, so after 17 months out of the ring because doping case, he returned in September for a 10-round unanimous decision over unknown but rugged Mexican Rodolfo Orozco in Orlando, Florida. Benn was permitted to fight after the Association of Boxing Commissions controversially removed him from the United States’ national suspension list and the Florida Athletic Commission agreed to license him with the fight being announced on a few days’ notice.
Now Benn is back for a second bout in the U.S. while awaiting the hearing and hoping he can fight again at home where he surely will land a major fight if he is licensed.
Benn will face undefeated but untested Peter Dobson in a scheduled 12-rounder in the main event of a Matchroom Boxing card on Saturday (DAZN, 3 p.m. ET) at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
“I’m 27 going on 40. I feel the last 18 months has aged me 10 years,” Benn said about the stress from his case, although he and his team have not been as cooperative in the investigation as British regulators would have liked. “I’ve changed a lot. Things that used to worry me don’t worry me anymore. It’s true when they say that when you go through adversity, it gives you nothing but resilience and strength. Would I choose to go through it again? Probably not. Has it taught me a lot about who Conor Benn is as a man? It’s tested me, my character, what I stand for, what I believe in.
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