By Keith Idec, photo by Ryan Hafey/PBC
NEW YORK – Deontay Wilder is in Manhattan this week to attend a civil trial based on Alexander Povetkin testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug before their ill-fated fight last year.
The fact that yet another of his opponents tested positive for PED last month has left Wilder bewildered. The hard-hitting Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) is training to defend his WBC heavyweight title against replacement Gerald Washington (18-0-1, 12 KOs) on February 25 because his original opponent, Poland’s Andrzej Wawrzyk, tested positive for stanozolol, an anabolic steroid.
“It was disgusting, man,” Wilder said of how he felt when he learned Wawrzyk (33-1, 19 KOs) also failed a PED test. “It was disgusting. It was mind-boggling to just really try to understand.”
The 31-year-old Wilder views this PED epidemic as particularly perplexing because boxers continue to fail PED tests even when they know they must be tested to fight for WBC championships as part of the Mexico City-based sanctioning organization’s PED testing program, a partnership with the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA).
“When guys try to fight me, it seems like they’re looking for some type of advantage for them to be able to come and fight me,” Wilder said. “But before [the fights are made], I wasn’t nobody. I’m easy. It’s easy to beat me. They can take away certain things that I have. But when it’s time for, ‘All right, you fighting me,’ then now it’s, ‘Aw, damn. What I done got myself into? I need a shield and a sword, and some armor as well.’ So they go shoot themselves up, or get somebody else to shoot them up and try to have an [advantage] against me.
“But it’s sad, though. It’s sad, especially in the heavyweight division, because the division is based off of power. This is where the big boys is. And if you get hit by one of those over-200-pound guys, it’s not nothing funny, or fun, either, especially with 10-ounce gloves on. So my thing is, why would you wanna go put something in your body that can be harmful to your body, maybe not now, but over the period of time it develops? Especially if you continue to do so, why would you wanna do that, put something harmful in your body, and then come in the ring and try to fight somebody, when you can really kill ‘em?”
Wilder is suing Povetkin and his promoter, Andrey Ryabinsky, for $5 million in damages because their fight scheduled for May 21 in Moscow was canceled less than a week earlier following Povetkin’s positive test for meldonium, a banned substance.
Wilder was supposed to earn $4.5 million for making a mandatory defense of his WBC title against Russia’s Povetkin (31-1, 23 KOs), then the WBC’s No. 1 contender and a former WBA title-holder. The Tuscaloosa, Alabama, native is seeking additional damages in a jury trial that will continue inside a Manhattan federal courtroom Thursday.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.