By Jake Donovan
However his night ends in his upcoming fight, Francisco Vargas will have likely made history by the time he enters the ring.
The unbeaten super featherweight titlist is at the tail end of a now well-publicized training camp for his June 4 showdown versus Orlando Salido, which will take place at the famed StubHub Center in Carson, California. The bout was initially in jeopardy after details were leaked of his having produced a positive drug test for the banned substance Clenbuterol.
An understanding between his team and the California State Athletic Commission allowed for provisional approval of the event moving forward, on the condition that Vargas is a clean athlete. Such condition came with a revised testing platform that has left the boxer willingly at the commission’s mercy, as he’s been put through the ringer like no other athlete before him.
“We’re are able to confirm that Mr. Vargas has produced clean tests on five occasions since the new brand of testing began following his earlier incident,” CSAC executive director Andy Foster informed BoxingScene.com. “The last known negative test came roughly a week ago. That certainly won’t be the last time we test him… although of course, we ain’t gonna tell him when the next ones will come.”
Vargas (23-0-1, 17KOs) and Salido were both enrolled in random drug testing as conducted by Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA, based out of Las Vegas and whose services have become the standard-bearer for its field. Results are rarely revealed until after full completion by its participants – almost always after a specific fight – although the occasional positive drug test ultimately makes its way to the media.
Such was the case with Vargas, who’d previously tested negative following a submitted sample to VADA while still stateside on April 16. His world was thrown for a loop on April 21, his second night home in Mexico City where he’d planned to set up training camp for the upcoming fight. Two days worth of his favorite homemade dish – carne asada con jugo – was fresh in his system when VADA came knocking on his door.
The problem – as he and his team have contended throughout the promotion – was that the meat used in the dish turned out to be contaminated, a matter being experienced by thousands of citizens in Mexico, where livestock in 58 slaughterhouses were found to carry Clenbuterol. Enough existed in his system to show up on the test, in accordance with the program’s “zero-tolerance” policy, although a considerably smaller dosage than is normally found among athletes who’ve ingested the substance with intent to cheat.
While contaminated meat is a messy ordeal with which citizens – particularly competing athletes – are unfairly forced to contend, there has since come a worldwide warning to drug-testing participants: you are responsible for what goes into your body.
With that, Vargas and his team was forced to accept responsibility upon learning of the test result in late April. It was a circumstance well understood by Golden Boy Promotions vice president Eric Gomez, who was fully cooperative with the CSAC during an emergency hearing held on April 29.
At the hearing, the CSAC expressed an understanding of how the test result came about, taking note of the clean test that was proved just prior to Vargas returning home. Its understanding was not to be mistaken for full absolution of guilt or blame; instead, a demand for stringent testing as the commission saw fit, such terms that Gomez ensured his boxer would honor to the full extent in efforts to prove he is a clean athlete.
The concession made on both sides as well as Salido (43-13-3, 30KOs) allowed the fight to move forward, although official final sanctioning won’t come until the end of the promotion, roughly around the time both boxers are due to the scale for the pre-fight weigh-in.
Vargas will make the first defense of the super featherweight title he claimed in heroic fashion, recovering from a knockdown, grotesque facial swelling and a deep cut to drop and stop Takashi Miura in round nine of their savage war last November in Las Vegas. The bout was hailed as 2015 Fight of the Year by several outlets (including BoxingScene.com), with such expectations assigned to the upcoming June 4 showdown given the boxer’s all-action styles.
The expectation for the final five weeks that will have preceded the event is that Vargas continues to submit clean drug tests. He’s done that – and will continue to do so all the way up to the opening bell.
“I can’t say for sure how many tests he will have completed by June 4; it’s already at seven in all so far,” Foster notes. “By the time all this is done, I can say that he will have been the most tested athlete for a single event in the history of combat sports in California.”
Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Follow his shiny new Twitter account: @JakeNDaBox_v2
