By Norm Frauenheim-
LAS VEGAS – Canelo Alvarez insists he is clean. Now, he has a chance to prove it.
The Nevada Athletic Commission gave him that opportunity Wednesday with a unanimous approval of an agreement that means he will serve a six-month suspension instead of a full year for the banned substance, Clenbuterol, that showed up in two tests in February, subsequently forcing him to withdraw from a Gennady Golovkin rematch scheduled for May 5.
The abbreviated suspension means he can still fight Golovkin in September. For now, the cancellation looks more like a postponement. That was the good news for hotels, cab drivers and bartenders up and down the Vegas Strip. They can still look forward to a Cinco De Mayo-like windfall on Sept. 15, the day before Mexican Independence. Yeah, money is still a factor here. Somebody has to pay for those slot machines.
There’s more, however, to it than just that. But it’s up to Canelo, who says the prohibited drug wound up in his blood stream unknowingly. He told Nevada he did not intentionally ingest the steroid-based substance. He blamed it on tainted Mexican beef. In so many words, he makes it sound as if he were an unwitting part of a corrupted food chain. From the butcher to his plate, he says he never knew he was ingesting a compound that has wound up being a very expensive piece of meat.
There’s plausible deniability in all of this, of course. There’s precedence, too. Mexico’s cattlemen have been using the substance to keep their product lean. Mexican boxers and soccer players have tested positive. Meanwhile, The Nevada Commission, a state agency, is bound by law. It played by the book, including Canelo’s status as a first-time offender and his willingness to cooperate as factors in its unanimous approval.
But the court of public opinion is not constrained by law, much less decorum. It’s been a free-for-all, especially on platforms where snark, suspicion, allegation and profanity are part of the digital disorder. It’s social media in name only. Since Wednesday’s ruling in Las Vegas, Canelo has been a convenient target, one of many. No surprise there. Canelo must have known it was coming.
The surprise here, however, is that he wasn’t proactive in addressing the inevitable criticism.
If he had been, he would have been enrolled in VADA – Volunteer Anti-Drug Testing Agency – before it was announced that the Nevada Commission had voted 5-0 in favor of the agreement for his shorter suspension.
Minutes after the hearing, VADA’s Dr. Margaret Goodman told 15 Rounds and the Los Angeles Times that “he was not enrolled at this time.’’ Sure enough, a check of Canelo’s page on www.boxrec.com showed he was not in the testing program that is aligned with the World Boxing Council. Meanwhile, a notation on GGG’s page shows that, yes, he is enrolled. Just checking.
Maybe, Canelo has already turned in the docs that will enroll him. Maybe, he’s doing so while this is being written. Maybe, it’s just process. Or, maybe, it’s just an oversight. But the maybes are an opening for everybody who just doesn’t believe him. There’s not much presumption of innocence left for anybody anywhere any more. But boxing has never enjoyed that presumption any way. There are no innocents, just the usual suspects.
But Canelo has a rare opportunity, one the Nevada Commission gave him Wednesday. He can provide a record, a clean slate of tests supporting what he said after the positive tests were disclosed. The burden of proof awaits him.
