Should PED’s Be Illegal For Boxers?
By: Jared Jones
They made Marion Jones run faster. They made Barry Bonds hit the ball further. They made Lance Armstrong riding a bike really fast for a really long time. Drugs made these athletes perform better. The athletes cheated to get ahead. When you get beat in a foot race, a baseball game, or a bike race however, you are not likely to sustain lifelong injuries or need hospital visits. Boxing is different. Boxing is a sport where a few scoring blows can literally be the difference between life and death.
Unfortunately, the boxing world has experienced this truth all too vividly over the past week with the tragic deaths of Maxim Dadashev and Hugo Santillian. Both men died shortly after their respective fights and within only two days of one another. Both men died due to similar subdural hematomas sustained as a result of head trauma they experienced during their fights.
A few months ago, heavyweight boxer Jarrell Miller failed a drug test and was forced out of his match-up against then champion Anthony Joshua. Over the weekend, heavyweight Dillian Whyte failed a drug test but was cleared to fight Oscar Rivas. Whyte was able to rise after being knocked down in the 9th round to win a close decision victory. Miller and Whyte are names on a list that is far longer than it should be of boxers with questionable ethics.
Which begs the question, when assault is an inherent part of the game, should cheating be illegal? Is it okay for drug use and cheating to be simply against the rules in boxing, or should we be doing more to protect our participants? Cheating boxers could theoretically be charged with anything from criminal misconduct and simple assault all the way up to attempted murder, and in many cases a strong argument could be made for guilt.
It’s impossible to quantify the amounts of sacrifice and damage these athletes subject themselves to from one battle to the next. Two men died last weekend from boxing. There is no better time than the present to address these issues. In a sport where the risks are different, the rules should be too. “You don’t play boxing. You really don’t. You play golf, you play tennis, but you don’t play boxing.” — Sugar Ray Leonard
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