"Making somebody sit out for 6 months is no big deal. People only fighting once every 6 months anyway. The top guys only fight twice a year, so it’s nothing. You gotta start banning these dudes for a year, 18 months, and if you test positive twice, you get banned for life, or else everybody just going to start cheating," stated world-class trainer Stephen "Breadman" Edwards, who shared his thoughts on the current state of PED use in boxing. Check it out!
PC: You are one of the main proponents for VADA testing and fighters submitting themselves to strenuous in and out of competition testing. Obviously Billy Joe Saunders is the most recent to be caught. What are your thoughts on the recent positive test and some of the allegations made here recently?
SE: Allegations and positive tests are two different things. Allegations is an opinion. A positive test is a fact. So I don’t really want to get into allegations because behind closed doors and off the record, everybody suspects certain guys of doing certain things. And that’s really not fair because when you run the eyeball test, sometimes you’re wrong and sometimes you’re right. However, the positive tests are what they are. I said it years ago and I will keep saying it, people do what they have to do to get an advantage. I never get into why. When you start getting into the why, this won’t help this guy or this won’t help that guy; when you do that, you start to challenge your own morality. Who cares why somebody did something, at the end of the day? I’ve heard so many excuses. “Well, I could have beat him without doing it.” Who cares why? The bottom line is either you’re cheating or you’re not cheating. People find too many grey areas with cheating. I just think everything that I said came to fruition. Now it’s up to the commission and the sanctioning body to start punishing these guys. Making somebody sit out for 6 months is no big deal. People only fighting once every 6 months anyway. The top guys only fight twice a year, so it’s nothing. You gotta start banning these dudes for a year, 18 months, and if you test positive twice, you get banned for life, or else everybody just going to start cheating.
PC: Just to be clear, when I say allegations, I wasn’t talking about fans saying who they think is dirty. I meant people like Mia St. John and Jameel McCline not only admitting to their past use of PEDs, but basically saying, “Everyone was doing it back then.”
SE: I saw that, man, and that was pretty deep. And you know what? I think their era was the start of it. I think that late 90’s-early 2000’s era was the start of it. I’m not saying that was the start of PEDs; I’m saying that was the start of where things got totally out of control. Baseball was out of control at that time. In 1998...I’m a baseball fan. ’98 was when McGuire and Sosa battled it out. If you look at guys around that time, that’s when guys started to walk around 30 pounds over the weight, losing weight, and then rehydrating, gaining a bunch of weight, and then fighting. If you notice before, fighters didn’t do that kind of stuff. There is a little bit of a cutoff and there is a direct correlation with all of these weight gains after the weigh-ins is around that time. They said what they said, but I’m not trying to turn nobody into a pioneer or something because they want to tell now. At the end of the day, Perc, they were taking drugs to hurt somebody. Maybe I’m corny, I’m just going to do things the right way. When you taking drugs to assault somebody and bash somebody in the head, I don’t have no respect for that. I peep a lot of things, I watch a lot of people, and I watch the fighters who don’t ask for testing. I watch the fighters who are the A-side in fights know that they could get testing if they wanted to and still don’t ask for it.
These reporters never ever ask the tough questions. They never say to any of these fighters, “Yo, man, did y'all do VADA? How come y'all didn’t?” They would rather have access to them and they don’t want to piss them off. It’s a bunch of fighters that never ask their opponents to test. Again, I’m not talking about being in the clean testing program. That’s totally different than what Deontay Wilder and Triple G do. I respect all fighters that go out their way and ask their opponents to test. I’m glad Demetrius Andrade caught Billy Joe Saunders. I could just tell guys that go out of their way to do certain things. Danny Garcia, people talk shit about Danny Garcia, but Danny Garcia tests. And he wins fights like a normal human being. Don’t nobody want to say it, but he wins fights like a normal fighter because he tests. People talk shit about him all the time and talk this and talk that, but guess what, it ain’t no dirty allegations surrounding Danny, I tell you that.
PC: Your number has actually gone up in the percentage in which you think are using.
SE: 75% of the top ten and I’m sticking with that. Yo, you’re not going to lose 30-40 pounds and feel strong all the time and know everybody else doing it and not stick something in your arm or take something that you know going to be out of your system in a couple days. All you gotta do is use common sense, Perc. The good guys that’s been caught recently is Canelo and Billy Joe Saunders, right? You know what they both got in common? They both got caught early. Billy Joe Saunders got caught in August for a fight that was coming around in October. You know why? Because guys cheat early because in the middle of camp, they figure that somebody is going to come knock on their door and their cycle will be done. But if you get them a little bit early, you’ll catch them. Canelo had a fight scheduled for May. When did they catch him? They caught him in February. Everybody gotta use their common sense and eliminate the fact that it may be your favorite fighter or someone you like; you can’t admit that they did it. And I think Billy Joe Saunders is a hell of a fighter and Canelo, man, Canelo is the best combination puncher in boxing. I have always been a fan of his, but a positive test is a positive test. It’s just that simple. You can’t get into why or did you really need it or this, that, and the other. A cheater is a cheater and Canelo could still fight his ass off without being on that stuff. He proved it, but he still used Clenbuterol. You can’t get around it. It is what it is.
That’s why I respect Deontay Wilder so much, man. It’s not always what you say, it’s what you don’t say, man. Deontay Wilder is one of the few A-side fighters in boxing that goes around talking about PEDs and challenges people that take them. He’s one of the few guys. Look at all of these guys with all of this mouth on social media and don’t none of them make their opponent stick a needle in their arm unless they have to. Deontay Wilder is the only one...I’m not going to say the only one, but one of the very few, him and Triple G, who consistently do VADA every single fight. They don’t have no picks. They do VADA and it ain’t the clean testing program. They pay for it. They got the money to pay for it. Think about that; all of these other guys is walking around, they’ll be in the clean testing program and the clean testing program is cool, but they test you once in a blue moon. I got a kid in the clean testing program. He’s been tested about 3 or 4 times outside of competition and I love what they doing, but that’s not the same as being tested once or twice a month on a consistent basis. I’ll call them to get him tested or I will email them like, “Yo man, come test us.” I’m trying to level the playing field as much as I can. PC: Do you feel like the ready-made excuses of tainted meat or tainted supplement, or someone must have given me something without my knowledge, do you feel those excuses are crutches and that too many people just go with that and buy in?
PC: Do you feel like the ready-made excuses of tainted meat or tainted supplement, or someone must have given me something without my knowledge, do you feel those excuses are crutches and that too many people just go with that and buy in?
SE: You know what scares me? A lot of guys in the media who are educated guys buy that bullshit. If I was going to cheat, Perc, you know what I would do? I would find a legal supplement that has the stuff in it. I would have my ready-made excuse ready just in case I get caught. So I would have a nasal spray that has Oxilofrine in it. I would make sure I would say I was eating meat in Mexico if I was taking Clenbuterol. Whatever I’m taking, I would make sure that I had my ready-made excuse. What a lot of people don’t realize is these substances that these guys are cheating with, they aren’t illegal; they are banned from sporting events and competitions. So you can get your hands on this stuff. I would already have my ready-made excuse. So, if someone is like, “Well, there is Clenbuterol in the meat in Mexico,” of course that’s what he’s going to say. What else is he going to say. Of course you’re going to find a nasal spray that has that stuff in it. What else are you going to say. A fighter is not smart enough to cycle on and off himself, so he’s getting it from some kind of sports scientist or some kind of guru. So that person is going to give him a ready-made excuse.
These fighters don’t have masters degrees. They not going to fucking college to figure out how to do this stuff. They pay somebody, they hire somebody, so not only are they giving them the PEDs, they giving them the excuses. Of course they gonna have excuses. The scary thing is people buy these excuses and they repeat what the fighter says. What else you gonna do? I’ve been in trouble with the law before. I’ve done dirt before; fucking right you’re going to have an excuse. You’re supposed to have an excuse. That don’t impress me that you have an excuse. You’re going to have one; you’re cheating. You should. How many guys have said, “You know what, I just cheated because I wanted an edge.” How many times have you heard that? You telling me every single person didn’t know what they were taking?
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]