Golden Boy Perspective on Bumpy Vargas-Salido Promotion

By Jake Donovan

From the moment it first suggested, those in the boxing world had a pairing between Francisco Vargas and Orlando Salido pegged as a can’t miss Fight of the Year candidate.

Getting the boxers to sign on for the scheduled June 4 clash was the easy part. The only hiccup, it turned out, was ensuring they would actually make it to the ring.

Drug testing has since dominated the promotion, due to Vargas having tested positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol through random drug testing conducted by Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA). The test took place on April 21, with both camps informed roughly one week later and immediately followed by an emergency meeting with the California State Athletic Commission – the presiding governing body for the HBO-televised headliner live from the famed StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.

A deal was struck to allow the fight to go on as planned, but event handlers were left to change gears. A promotion that ran on autopilot as an all-action fight suddenly became about ensuring to the public that both athletes are clean.

“When you have a great fight, most of the fans and media respond favorably and look forward to it as possibly the Fight of the Year,” Eric Gomez, the even-handed vice president of Golden Boy Promotions explained during a recent media conference call. “An event like this, obviously you don’t want any bad publicity but unfortunately it happened.”

Vargas (23-0-1, 17KOs) and his team have contended all along that the adverse finding of Clenbuterol in his system stemmed from his eating contaminated meat upon his return home to Mexico City. The recently crowned super featherweight titlist produced clean tests while still in California earlier in the month – the most recent coming on April 15 – but was tested again on April 21, his second night home.

By that point, he enjoyed helpings of his favorite homemade meal, carne asada con jugo (a broth-soaked meat dish) on back-to-back nights. Recent studies as reported by the Associated Press point out the issue of the substance also frequently used by ranchers in Mexico, feeding it to livestock to produce lean muscle. Vargas' team continues to cling to that alibi - which has not yet been dismissed - in the manner in which it has entered the boxer's system.

The proof – as they suggest – has come in the form of his producing at least three clean tests since that point, while still awaiting the results for two more tests taking earlier this week. In that regard, Vargas has done his job to move forward with the first defense of the super featherweight title he heroically claimed in rallying from a knockdown, deep cut under his eye and grotesque facial swelling to stop Takashi Miura in the 9th round of their instant classic last November.

The bout was hailed by many outlets – including BoxingScene.com – as 2015 Fight of the Year. Salido (43-13-3, 30KOs) has been in several fights on that level throughout his incredible 20-year career, including a pair of thrillers with Rocky Martinez last year.

Given their all-action styles, expecting blood-soaked drama on June 4 was all but a given. Many expect it to still be the case, although Golden Boy Promotions first had to provide momentary damage control to rally the public back on the side of its athlete. Fortunately for the California-based company, its executive members are experienced in this field.

“We have experience with this. It happened to us with Danny Garcia and Erik Morales (in their Oct. ’12 rematch),” Gomez pointed out. “We went through the same thing with Erik, it was consistent with what took place here. He was fine all along, produced negative test results. He then came down from the mountains where he was training, ate somewhere in Mexico City and came up positive (for Clenbuterol).

Morales had to take multiple tests through the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) before finally producing a clean test and allowing the New York State Athletic Commission to move forward with sanctioning the fight.

The former four-division champ claims to this day that he was the victim of tainted beef, although the matter was not met favorably with the boxing public. Nor was it taken well by Garcia, whose father and trainer Angel wanted his son to withdraw from the fight. Garcia eventually went through with the rematch, scoring a one-sided 4th round knockout.

There have been a few harsh words exchanged between managers Sean Gibbons (Salido) and Ralph Heredia (Vargas), but matters which were quickly resolved within the life of the conversation. Because of the timing of the test result, Salido’s team agreed to allow the fight to proceed as planned, believing whatever was in his system – and however it was ingested – wouldn’t last long enough to produce a performance enhancing result.

“The good thing is that we’re dealing with professionals,” Gomez acknowledged. “Sean Gibbons went through the same with Salido (in 2006 following his win-turned No-Contest versus Robert Guerrero due to testing positive for Nandrolone) and knew how to deal with it. That’s the reason we didn’t lose the fight. We’ve all moved past it and the fans now get to enjoy this great fight.”

It appears that the paying public has chosen to focus more on the in-ring potential than the out-of-ring drama. Gomez announced that roughly 1,000 tickets remain for the show.

“Tickets are still available but they are going fast. This is probably the best selling card we’ve had at StubHub for Golden Boy Promotions,” Gomez insisted.

Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Follow his shiny new Twitter account: @JakeNDaBox_v2