The sweeping dismissals and catty memes are already being cranked out. Golden Boy?s golden goose is cooked?
As everyone likely knows by now, Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez has tested positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol just two months away from his May 5 rematch with Gennady Golovkin. Alvarez?s promoter, Golden Boy, announced the failed test via preemptive strike press release, smartly breaking the story rather than waiting for the failed test to leak to the public via the boxing media.
Clenbuterol, in shady boxing circles, is used to help fighters lose weight quickly while retaining lean muscle mass. In the ?real? world, the drug has been used in the Mexican beef industry to reduce fat in cattle and promote the growth of lean protein?and this ?reality? emboldens those who may try and misuse the drug for athletic purposes. After all, if you get caught, the option of blaming contaminated meat will always be there.
Reportedly, only ?trace levels? of the banned substance were found in Alvarez and, of course, contaminated meat has been pointed to as the culprit.
The Golden Boy press release touched on all the pertinent points of Canelo?s defense and made all the right assurances of fair play. Canelo will be moving his camp to the US to avoid Mexican beef contamination and will comply with all future testing.
Again, all the right things have been said. But, the damage to Canelo, his career, and his upcoming fight with Golovkin, has already been done.
For a boxing world already inclined to think the worst of Alvarez and the validity of his career, this dirty test assures that he will never be able to fight his way into the hearts and minds of boxing die-hards and old school fans.
Already seen as having had things too easy and too good, Canelo has fallen into that dark, suspicious cavern of hatred for pugs not ugly enough or rough enough around the edges to be a ?real? fighter. This positive test affirms all of the critics? most cynical thoughts.
It doesn?t even matter if he actually did try to use a banned substance to his benefit. All that was needed was the POSSIBILITY that he did.
From this point forward, the kid from Guadalajara with all the money, all the fame, and a target on his back from those ?real? fans he most wants to impress, will be the subject of endless mocking and debasing. His legacy will become full of asterisks and question marks. And, even should he crush Golovkin in his return bout with the Kazakh KO artist, it will serve no good to sway those who have already made up their mind that he was always a pampered hype job never good enough to do thing the ?right? way.
To sweep away Alvarez so easily and so completely is pure idiocy. However, fans always enjoy the privilege of being as illogical and as closed-minded as they want to be.
But, this time, the bad publicity and social media lynchings won?t be about conspiracy theories or perceptions that he?s running scared from so-and-so. This time, there?s some substance to the attacks, enough for them to stick long and hard.
Canelo Alvarez was either intentionally trying to use a banned substance to his benefit or he was a multi-million dollar elite-level athlete so oblivious to the possibility of tainted meat in his own home country that he ate contaminated beef. And it?s hard to believe the latter when we know just how much time and energy is put into the alimentation of a high-end athlete with millions to lose.
Intent may be made clear by seeing the actual lab results of Alvarez?s test. The word from the WADA-accredited lab is that levels of Clenbuterol in Alvarez?s system are small and consistent with what would be expected from meat contamination. It?s likely, though, that the general public will never know all of the details related to this positive test.
None of that really matters, though. Perception is reality in the world of boxing fandom. The sweeping dismissals and catty memes are already being cranked out. Golden Boy?s golden goose is cooked.
