if a few powerful promoters, tv networks or more importantly sanctioning bodies forced the issue on not just an agreed list of banned anti performance drugs but more importantly a universal stringent testing set of rules where any pro boxer has to agree to the tests, no outs if they ever want to get paid. Any fails and an impartial group of respected professionals have an agreed list of punishments that fits the crime. and more importantly a small part of the sports overall income goes towards the costs of testing. Perhaps something on the lines of modern drug testing in road cycling should be looked at.
If the B-sample confirms the A-sample then Conor Benn will be suspended for 4 years by UKAD/WADA rules - if he can prove that he ingested the drug without his knowledge then he'll get a 2 year ban (unlikely).
The Conor Benn case was possibly explained this week when it became apparent that he's been working with Dr Usman Sajjad. Dr Sajjad is infamous for explaining how it's easy to get round a urine drug test, this was apparently before working with Benn, and saying that only an idiot gets caught by a urine test.
Of course a VADA sample consists of urine and blood samples - maybe Benn and Sajjad didn't realise that.
Dr Sajjad has also been working with Tyson Fury for over a year - which covers the time after the Wilder fight when Fury returned to fighting in the UK. Fury says Sajjad is there as a GP to help him with any injuries or illness during training camp - if you believe that one you'll believe pigs will fly.
Tyson Fury has a terrible record when it comes to PEDs - some fans don't realise that he actually has 3 strikes against him with UKAD for Cocaine, Nandrolone and refusing to give a sample - all of these are automatic 4 year bans according to UKAD/WADA rules but Fury spent a huge amount of money on lawyers and imo was treated far too leniently by the National Anti-Doping Panel, who came up with his punishment - a 2 year backdated ban was far less than the bans issued to other UK sportsmen in other sports.
The amount of money spent by Fury on lawyers may be why he had to go to the US and take on Wilder three times - he couldn't have made that amount of money in the UK.
The news that this Dr Usman Sajjad is working with Fury should be sounding alarm bells with those governing British boxing. Benn is being investigated by UKAD and imo they should also be looking into what Tyson Fury has been doing and the role of this doctor in his team.
Golovkin is the exact same age as Kelly Pavlik. Almost to the day. I think the massive hype that buoyed his entire career, would've faded rather quickly. If G would've faced his real contemporaries. Hopkins, Winky, Taylor, Pavlik, Ward, Calazaghe, etc. Finger Pointing and Excuses will always be the foundation of his legacy.
Well tbh we'll never really know will we - let's have a look at your list and see who Golovkin avoided.
Andre Ward and Joe Calzaghe were career long super middleweights (Ward fought twice at 160) - both moved up to LHW (175) for their last few fights (Ward in 2016, Joe in 2008)
As for the others, Winky Wright last won a fight in 2006 and Hopkins moved up to LHW (175) in 2006 after beating Wright, Taylor last fought at 160 in 2007, and Pavlik debuted in 2000 (6 years before GGG) but fought above 160lbs from 2010.
So everyone on this list was either different weights and/ or different eras to Golovkin, as he had his first pro fight in 2006 (because of his 345 -5 amateur career) and didn't get to world level until around 2012. He had a relatively short prime as a pro because of his extensive amateur career.
As a result I'd like to be a little kinder to Golovkin. IMHO he tried to make the best fights that were available to him - it's not his fault that the era he fought in wasn't very good.
Even at 35/36, and no longer in his prime, he fought Canelo twice and as far as I'm concerned he was screwed by the Nevada judges.
How he's regarded compared to the very best middleweights is up for debate - he will have question marks about him simply because there was no great threat/rival to him during his prime. Consequently, I certainly wouldn't rank him in the top 10 middleweights of all-time.
That's my point. Canelo was never a true contemporary of Golovkin. It's like being upset with Spence or Bud for not fighting Boots or Vergil Ortiz right now. Guys like Loma or G stay in the Amateurs until they're full grown men beating on Teenagers. The former Soviet Bloc has been gaming the entire Amateur System in this manner for decades. Then they show up purposely late to the party. And somehow everyone else is expected to adjust to their hurried schedule. C'mon smh. BTW. This tilting of the scales, was the sole impetus for the USA's "Dream Team" in basketball. If you remember.
Remember that pro boxing is a business. And any business aims to minimise its losses and to maximise its wins. Look at Joshua. Who has he beaten, really? Klitch was way past his best. He avoided Wilder and now Fury. He will probably escape Joyce. Of course, he would not have biffed Usyk if he had known....Fury had 3-0 against Wilder.
The point is that boxing is now a business where boxers don't fight all their top contemporaries; it is just not good business for all involved.
As with any business, the customers decide. Since people are happy to pay to watch AJ, TF, DW biff nobodies, the boxers will continue to do so.
Your opinion of Joshua avoiding Wilder and Fury isn't fact - it's based on bias and heresay, and in fact you ignore a fact that you've seen that doesn't fit your opinion.
In fact Barry, all of your posts concerning Hearn/Joshua are biased towards a Fury/Warren viewpoint. It may surprise you to learn that it's possible to appreciate other UK heavyweights other than Tyson Fury.
The Fury fanboys' narrative is that because a heavyweight isn't as good as Fury then they must be shit and they then do everything to belittle those heavyweights.
Let's get into specifics. Joshua faced Wlad only 18 months after Fury had faced him - the great Fury feigned retirement rather than give Wlad his contracted rematch - the time wasted allowed Wlad to have only one fight between Fury & Joshua. Fury fanboys claim that Wlad was a killer when Fury fought him but was way past his best 18 months later - this is opinion not fact.
Joshua fought Wlad in only his 19th fight and as far as I'm concerned Wlad was close to his best, not a shadow of himself as he was in the Fury fight - that's obviously a subjective thing of course.
Joshua's resume includes Whyte, Martin, Breazeale, Wlad, Takam, Parker, Povetkin, Ruiz (twice), Pulev & Usyk (twice) as far as I'm concerned that's a good resume and I think many fans would agree.
I've also proved that Hearn tried to make the Joshua vs Wilder fight by showing you the tweet in which Wilder admitted it - however you would prefer to continue to take Wilder's promoter and part of his management trio, Shelly Finkel's, word that there was no offer from Hearn.
Why would you take Finkel's word for it when he's obviously hugely biased towards Wilder, has been contradicted by Wilder's tweet, and he was shown to have made up their $100M offer to Joshua?
I've got to assume that it's simply because it suits your claims about Joshua - it certainly isn't the truth as Deontay confirmed.
You also agree with Fury's promoter, Frank Warren, that 3 weeks was too long to make the Fury vs Joshua fight - I don't know any really big fight that has been negotiated within 3 weeks. What's more they've been negotiating with Chisora for 3 weeks so far and Fury hasn't pulled out of that fight - btw it suggests they started negotiating with Chisora before pulling out of the Joshua fight.
Now onto Wilder. Everybody knows that Wilder was matched soft - so Fury fighting him three times wasn't much of a deal then, was it? It's easy to make stuff suit your opinion or bias isn't it.
Actually I give Fury great credit for taking those fights, in his circumstances, and for beating Wilder 3 times (he was robbed in the first fight). However imo Fury probably had to take those fights because he owed so much to lawyers.
In addition, the recent news that Fury has been working for over a year with the same doctor as Conor Benn, Dr Usman Sajjad, also makes me wonder what he was up to when training and fighting in the US - that's by-the-by though.
I repeat - it is a fact that Wilder admitted turning down a bigger offer to fight Joshua for the Fury fight in his tweet to Fury - he tweeted Fury because he was trying to stop a Fury vs Joshua fight from happening instead of the third Wilder vs Fury fight.
However this fact, not opinion, will clearly not change your view of Hearn/Joshua as you are committed to the Warren/Fury narrative.
All fans form opinions from incomplete knowledge of situations - the problem comes when they won't shift from those opinions in the light of new information, particularly facts such as the tweet from Wilder himself, then it becomes plain opinion based on bias rather than based on the known information.
1. As part of their arbitration case, Wilder showed his final offer to AJ to Fury. It was 50 big ones!
2. Listen to this interview carefully. That reporter parrot the lines spun by Fast Eddie, like you did. Perhaps you will compare your knowledge of how deals are done - or not done - to Finky?
3. There are other insiders who have repeatedly said that if a fighter does not want to biff, there are numerous reasons to support it. He even mentioned one fighter who refused because he wanted to walk out last!
4. Those oppos of AJ you mentioned - excluding Klitc;h apart from Whyte and Parkers, where are they now?
5. Credibility comes solely from being able to prove with facts and reasons one's assertions
Let’s start with a couple of those scary facts Barry…
(A) Hearn offered Wilder a fight with Joshua – it was a higher offer than the one he got to fight Fury.
(B) DAZN’s John Skipper offered Wilder $100M and a variety of deals of Wilder’s choosing – every deal included a fight with Joshua.
Now…
(A) is a FACT because Wilder admitted it in a tweet to Fury.
(B) is a FACT as it was confirmed by all of the boxing press and Wilder confirmed it when turning the deals down – here’s Dan’s article about the DAZN offers to Wilder…
It seems highly unlikely that Joshua wanted to avoid Wilder when we know for a FACT that Wilder was made at least 2 offers, at different times, to fight Joshua.
These offers could NOT have been made without Joshua’s agreement. The idea that Joshua wanted to avoid Wilder simply doesn’t make sense – no matter what Finkel says.
3. Which insiders? These are just rumours and heresay not facts as usual.
4.
What they are doing now is totally irrelevant - it's what they were doing at the time of the fights that counts. They were all highly ranked at the time of the fights.
As you seem to think that the fighters I listed are no longer boxing, here’s your answer…
Ruiz: The WBC are going to announce a WBC eliminator between Ruiz and Wilder.
Usyk: is going to fight Fury next year.
Charles Martin: is hoping to put right the Ortiz loss and is still one of the best US heavyweights.
Kubrat Pulev: lost a close fight with Chisora last time out and is probably hoping for a rematch.
Dominic Breazeale: hasn't fought since his points loss to Otto Wallin.
Parker & Whyte: still fighting of course.
Povetkin: Retired.
No doubt you'll have some criticism of these - produce a better 12 man list (rematches allowed of course) for Mr Fury.
5. Let's look at FACTS & OPINIONS...
“The Fury – Joshua negotiations lasted exactly 3 weeks (Sept 7th to Sept 28th)” - this is a FACT.
“Hearn/Joshua didn’t want the fight” – is an OPINION based on that FACT.
An opinion is subjective – a different opinion based on the same fact is….
“Only 3 weeks shows Fury didn’t really want the fight”
Without any other facts for us to use both of these opinions are equally valid.
I’m afraid you simply haven’t presented any FACTS in your claims about Joshua ducking Wilder and Fury – you have offered only opinions – whereas I’ve given two FACTS that shows that Finkel’s claims about Joshua ducking Wilder are at the very least highly unlikely.
Most Tyson Fury fans couldn’t give a rat’s ass about facts of course if it detracts from criticising Joshua.
It’s clear that a high percentage of Tyson Fury fans think that being a boxing fan is just like being a football fan and they have to denigrate Fury’s main rivals at every opportunity, the main one being Joshua. They present what they think are facts when they’re actually only opinions.
I don’t understand this rather immature "football fan-like" attitude. Boxing isn’t, and shouldn’t be, like that.
It’s perfectly possible to appreciate both Fury and Joshua as well as Joyce, Dubois, Whyte, Wardley, Chisora, Clarke, Adeleye etc.
Thankfully there aren’t any of these kinds of Fury fans where I usually post.
if a few powerful promoters, tv networks or more importantly sanctioning bodies forced the issue on not just an agreed list of banned anti performance drugs but more importantly a universal stringent testing set of rules where any pro boxer has to agree to the tests, no outs if they ever want to get paid. Any fails and an impartial group of respected professionals have an agreed list of punishments that fits the crime. and more importantly a small part of the sports overall income goes towards the costs of testing. Perhaps something on the lines of modern drug testing in road cycling should be looked at.
If the B-sample confirms the A-sample then Conor Benn will be suspended for 4 years by UKAD/WADA rules - if he can prove that he ingested the drug without his knowledge then he'll get a 2 year ban (unlikely).
The Conor Benn case was possibly explained this week when it became apparent that he's been working with Dr Usman Sajjad. Dr Sajjad is infamous for explaining how it's easy to get round a urine drug test, this was apparently before working with Benn, and saying that only an idiot gets caught by a urine test.
Of course a VADA sample consists of urine and blood samples - maybe Benn and Sajjad didn't realise that.
Dr Sajjad has also been working with Tyson Fury for over a year - which covers the time after the Wilder fight when Fury returned to fighting in the UK. Fury says Sajjad is there as a GP to help him with any injuries or illness during training camp - if you believe that one you'll believe pigs will fly.
Tyson Fury has a terrible record when it comes to PEDs - some fans don't realise that he actually has 3 strikes against him with UKAD for Cocaine, Nandrolone and refusing to give a sample - all of these are automatic 4 year bans according to UKAD/WADA rules but Fury spent a huge amount of money on lawyers and imo was treated far too leniently by the National Anti-Doping Panel, who came up with his punishment - a 2 year backdated ban was far less than the bans issued to other UK sportsmen in other sports.
The amount of money spent by Fury on lawyers may be why he had to go to the US and take on Wilder three times - he couldn't have made that amount of money in the UK.
The news that this Dr Usman Sajjad is working with Fury should be sounding alarm bells with those governing British boxing. Benn is being investigated by UKAD and imo they should also be looking into what Tyson Fury has been doing and the role of this doctor in his team.
I hope they won't benn the rules for Conor.
Golovkin is the exact same age as Kelly Pavlik. Almost to the day. I think the massive hype that buoyed his entire career, would've faded rather quickly. If G would've faced his real contemporaries. Hopkins, Winky, Taylor, Pavlik, Ward, Calazaghe, etc. Finger Pointing and Excuses will always be the foundation of his legacy.
Well tbh we'll never really know will we - let's have a look at your list and see who Golovkin avoided.
Andre Ward and Joe Calzaghe were career long super middleweights (Ward fought twice at 160) - both moved up to LHW (175) for their last few fights (Ward in 2016, Joe in 2008)
As for the others, Winky Wright last won a fight in 2006 and Hopkins moved up to LHW (175) in 2006 after beating Wright, Taylor last fought at 160 in 2007, and Pavlik debuted in 2000 (6 years before GGG) but fought above 160lbs from 2010.
So everyone on this list was either different weights and/ or different eras to Golovkin, as he had his first pro fight in 2006 (because of his 345 -5 amateur career) and didn't get to world level until around 2012. He had a relatively short prime as a pro because of his extensive amateur career.
As a result I'd like to be a little kinder to Golovkin. IMHO he tried to make the best fights that were available to him - it's not his fault that the era he fought in wasn't very good.
Even at 35/36, and no longer in his prime, he fought Canelo twice and as far as I'm concerned he was screwed by the Nevada judges.
How he's regarded compared to the very best middleweights is up for debate - he will have question marks about him simply because there was no great threat/rival to him during his prime. Consequently, I certainly wouldn't rank him in the top 10 middleweights of all-time.
That's my point. Canelo was never a true contemporary of Golovkin. It's like being upset with Spence or Bud for not fighting Boots or Vergil Ortiz right now. Guys like Loma or G stay in the Amateurs until they're full grown men beating on Teenagers. The former Soviet Bloc has been gaming the entire Amateur System in this manner for decades. Then they show up purposely late to the party. And somehow everyone else is expected to adjust to their hurried schedule. C'mon smh. BTW. This tilting of the scales, was the sole impetus for the USA's "Dream Team" in basketball. If you remember.
Ah I see - yes sorry misunderstood your post.
No worries. I enjoy the discussion. Have a great day Ozzie. And enjoy the fights 👍
Cheers - should be a good weekend's boxing - enjoy!
Remember that pro boxing is a business. And any business aims to minimise its losses and to maximise its wins. Look at Joshua. Who has he beaten, really? Klitch was way past his best. He avoided Wilder and now Fury. He will probably escape Joyce. Of course, he would not have biffed Usyk if he had known....Fury had 3-0 against Wilder.
The point is that boxing is now a business where boxers don't fight all their top contemporaries; it is just not good business for all involved.
As with any business, the customers decide. Since people are happy to pay to watch AJ, TF, DW biff nobodies, the boxers will continue to do so.
Good to see you're still making your own facts up there Barry.
Oi, Ozzy
We are talking about facts which can be verified - not opinions. Do you know the difference between the two?
I was astonished to see a list of Wilder's first 39 biffs. He fought two in the top 10; some were in the top 100!
Your opinion of Joshua avoiding Wilder and Fury isn't fact - it's based on bias and heresay, and in fact you ignore a fact that you've seen that doesn't fit your opinion.
In fact Barry, all of your posts concerning Hearn/Joshua are biased towards a Fury/Warren viewpoint. It may surprise you to learn that it's possible to appreciate other UK heavyweights other than Tyson Fury.
The Fury fanboys' narrative is that because a heavyweight isn't as good as Fury then they must be shit and they then do everything to belittle those heavyweights.
Let's get into specifics. Joshua faced Wlad only 18 months after Fury had faced him - the great Fury feigned retirement rather than give Wlad his contracted rematch - the time wasted allowed Wlad to have only one fight between Fury & Joshua. Fury fanboys claim that Wlad was a killer when Fury fought him but was way past his best 18 months later - this is opinion not fact.
Joshua fought Wlad in only his 19th fight and as far as I'm concerned Wlad was close to his best, not a shadow of himself as he was in the Fury fight - that's obviously a subjective thing of course.
Joshua's resume includes Whyte, Martin, Breazeale, Wlad, Takam, Parker, Povetkin, Ruiz (twice), Pulev & Usyk (twice) as far as I'm concerned that's a good resume and I think many fans would agree.
I've also proved that Hearn tried to make the Joshua vs Wilder fight by showing you the tweet in which Wilder admitted it - however you would prefer to continue to take Wilder's promoter and part of his management trio, Shelly Finkel's, word that there was no offer from Hearn.
Why would you take Finkel's word for it when he's obviously hugely biased towards Wilder, has been contradicted by Wilder's tweet, and he was shown to have made up their $100M offer to Joshua?
I've got to assume that it's simply because it suits your claims about Joshua - it certainly isn't the truth as Deontay confirmed.
You also agree with Fury's promoter, Frank Warren, that 3 weeks was too long to make the Fury vs Joshua fight - I don't know any really big fight that has been negotiated within 3 weeks. What's more they've been negotiating with Chisora for 3 weeks so far and Fury hasn't pulled out of that fight - btw it suggests they started negotiating with Chisora before pulling out of the Joshua fight.
Now onto Wilder. Everybody knows that Wilder was matched soft - so Fury fighting him three times wasn't much of a deal then, was it? It's easy to make stuff suit your opinion or bias isn't it.
Actually I give Fury great credit for taking those fights, in his circumstances, and for beating Wilder 3 times (he was robbed in the first fight). However imo Fury probably had to take those fights because he owed so much to lawyers.
In addition, the recent news that Fury has been working for over a year with the same doctor as Conor Benn, Dr Usman Sajjad, also makes me wonder what he was up to when training and fighting in the US - that's by-the-by though.
I repeat - it is a fact that Wilder admitted turning down a bigger offer to fight Joshua for the Fury fight in his tweet to Fury - he tweeted Fury because he was trying to stop a Fury vs Joshua fight from happening instead of the third Wilder vs Fury fight.
However this fact, not opinion, will clearly not change your view of Hearn/Joshua as you are committed to the Warren/Fury narrative.
All fans form opinions from incomplete knowledge of situations - the problem comes when they won't shift from those opinions in the light of new information, particularly facts such as the tweet from Wilder himself, then it becomes plain opinion based on bias rather than based on the known information.
1. As part of their arbitration case, Wilder showed his final offer to AJ to Fury. It was 50 big ones!
2. Listen to this interview carefully. That reporter parrot the lines spun by Fast Eddie, like you did. Perhaps you will compare your knowledge of how deals are done - or not done - to Finky?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K-0f1XA6_Q
3. There are other insiders who have repeatedly said that if a fighter does not want to biff, there are numerous reasons to support it. He even mentioned one fighter who refused because he wanted to walk out last!
4. Those oppos of AJ you mentioned - excluding Klitc;h apart from Whyte and Parkers, where are they now?
5. Credibility comes solely from being able to prove with facts and reasons one's assertions
1. & 2. IMO there’s a much better way.
Let’s start with a couple of those scary facts Barry…
(A) Hearn offered Wilder a fight with Joshua – it was a higher offer than the one he got to fight Fury.
(B) DAZN’s John Skipper offered Wilder $100M and a variety of deals of Wilder’s choosing – every deal included a fight with Joshua.
Now…
(A) is a FACT because Wilder admitted it in a tweet to Fury.
(B) is a FACT as it was confirmed by all of the boxing press and Wilder confirmed it when turning the deals down – here’s Dan’s article about the DAZN offers to Wilder…
https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/_/id/26300183/wilder-camp-rejects-9-figure-dazn-offer
It seems highly unlikely that Joshua wanted to avoid Wilder when we know for a FACT that Wilder was made at least 2 offers, at different times, to fight Joshua.
These offers could NOT have been made without Joshua’s agreement. The idea that Joshua wanted to avoid Wilder simply doesn’t make sense – no matter what Finkel says.
3. Which insiders? These are just rumours and heresay not facts as usual.
4.
What they are doing now is totally irrelevant - it's what they were doing at the time of the fights that counts. They were all highly ranked at the time of the fights.
As you seem to think that the fighters I listed are no longer boxing, here’s your answer…
Ruiz: The WBC are going to announce a WBC eliminator between Ruiz and Wilder.
Usyk: is going to fight Fury next year.
Charles Martin: is hoping to put right the Ortiz loss and is still one of the best US heavyweights.
Kubrat Pulev: lost a close fight with Chisora last time out and is probably hoping for a rematch.
Dominic Breazeale: hasn't fought since his points loss to Otto Wallin.
Parker & Whyte: still fighting of course.
Povetkin: Retired.
No doubt you'll have some criticism of these - produce a better 12 man list (rematches allowed of course) for Mr Fury.
5. Let's look at FACTS & OPINIONS...
“The Fury – Joshua negotiations lasted exactly 3 weeks (Sept 7th to Sept 28th)” - this is a FACT.
“Hearn/Joshua didn’t want the fight” – is an OPINION based on that FACT.
An opinion is subjective – a different opinion based on the same fact is….
“Only 3 weeks shows Fury didn’t really want the fight”
Without any other facts for us to use both of these opinions are equally valid.
I’m afraid you simply haven’t presented any FACTS in your claims about Joshua ducking Wilder and Fury – you have offered only opinions – whereas I’ve given two FACTS that shows that Finkel’s claims about Joshua ducking Wilder are at the very least highly unlikely.
Most Tyson Fury fans couldn’t give a rat’s ass about facts of course if it detracts from criticising Joshua.
It’s clear that a high percentage of Tyson Fury fans think that being a boxing fan is just like being a football fan and they have to denigrate Fury’s main rivals at every opportunity, the main one being Joshua. They present what they think are facts when they’re actually only opinions.
I don’t understand this rather immature "football fan-like" attitude. Boxing isn’t, and shouldn’t be, like that.
It’s perfectly possible to appreciate both Fury and Joshua as well as Joyce, Dubois, Whyte, Wardley, Chisora, Clarke, Adeleye etc.
Thankfully there aren’t any of these kinds of Fury fans where I usually post.