by David P. Greisman

Antonio Tarver has for years railed against a world he says has been against him. Sometimes fighting for everything means you’re fighting everyone — the boxers who stand in the way of you and your dreams, the system that favors others who are respected or connected, the people who’ve written you off before you think your final chapter has come to a close.

Tarver’s many motivations brought him from addiction to competition, from flameout to amateur standout, from a late-blooming Olympic medalist to a pro trying to contend for a title before it was too late, from recovering from a broken jaw to warding off broken dreams, from chasing the best light heavyweight in the world to facing him, and then from a competitive loss to a championship win.

All of that was more than a decade ago. It’s been a long time since Antonio Tarver was on top, and now his fight is to keep from bottoming out. He’s still railing against a world he still believes is against him.

But he’s the one obstacle that most needs to be overcome.

He is 47 now in a sport that favors the young or at least the well-preserved. He is a former light heavyweight and cruiserweight trying to fight among heavyweights. He is in debt, is often in trouble because of it, and knows his only way out of both is to fight. Yet it’s hard for him to get the fights he wants to get the money he needs.

And it’ll be even harder now that he has tested positive for performance enhancing drugs for the second time in his career.

Tarver knows this, and that is why he is railing once again, this time about the testing that took place for his August 2015 draw against Steve Cunningham — a draw he believed should have been a decision win. And he’s railing about the hearing that took place last week before the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, which suspended and fined him. He’s railing because he feels he’s being railroaded.

Tarver-Cunningham was on Aug. 14. Testing conducted on Aug. 11 and Aug. 14 produced results “consistent with the exogenous origin of testosterone” — that is, testosterone that was put into his body — as well as metabolites indicating the presence of androstanediol, another banned steroid, according to a report last November by Chris Mannix.

The positive tests came up after the bout. They weren’t made public until October, though the athletic commission wasn’t the one disclosing this. Rather, it took anonymous sources revealing it to Mannix, and then it took Cunningham’s attorney, Pat English, supplying Mannix with more information in November.

Tarver says those results shouldn’t be trusted — nor should the athletic commission and the card’s promoter.

“To my dismay they [the commission] upheld their opinion, their findings that I failed a drug test in my last fight against Steve Cunningham even though the evidence show that the only legitimate testing company hired by the New Jersey state athletic commission was LabCorp,” Tarver said on a video he posted shortly after the commission hearing. “They tested me three times that week of the fight. All tests came back negative of all PEDs, all testosterone, artificial testosterone, all steroids and all masking agents.

“But the private company hired by and independently hired by Lou DiBella, who just happened to be the promoter of the show and the promoter of Steve Cunningham, all their tests are claiming they found something. They still haven’t really said how it got in my system, I think they accused me of using some kind of cream or something but there’s no factual basis for their claims,” he said.  “I’ve asked through my lawyer four times for the same samples that they claim are dirty to have them sent so I can have them DNA tested that will either exonerate me or find me guilty of something. That’s the only way I can prove my innocence. They still have ignored my claim for the DNA test, will not allow me to get it tested, claiming that it’s no use.”

He continued to make his case with a call-in appearance on an episode of a podcast called The Morning Punch-In Show.

“They got this other elaborate sophisticated testing by WADA, Olympic-style. I got no complaint with that. But if someone has direction, they can find whatever they looking for, whatever they want to find if they have direction. All I’m saying is I want due process,” he said at one point.

“There’s a clean test by a credible company called LabCorp,” he soon added. “How did I beat the LabCorp test? If there was something in my system they would’ve found it. If I’m taking something to mask the test, this other company would’ve found it. They didn’t. All they’re saying is they found some artificial testosterone.  How do I know that’s my urine? How can I prove myself if they don’t allow me to retest what they say they found in my urine? If I never see the urine and ever get it tested, where’s the due process?”

He’s labeled the positive test “a frame job” and said he will “expose the conspiracy.” But there’s plenty to unpack from his statements alone.

The claims that DiBella would work to have Tarver set up are dubious. While DiBella was the promoter of record for the August show in Newark, New Jersey, he does not promote either Cunningham or Tarver. Rather, both boxers are essentially promotional free agents who are otherwise aligned with Al Haymon, the powerful boxing adviser who hires promoters, including DiBella, to help put on cards involving his fighters.

Tarver is a longtime Haymon client. Haymon’s relationship with the fighter is close enough that when Tarver was jailed in 2014 — because he owed $200,000 in gambling debt dating to 2012 — Haymon bailed Tarver out. And with Tarver now owing more than $750,000 in child support, Haymon has essentially continued to bail the fighter out by getting him fights.

As for the test results, not all drug testing is the same. Just because the LabCorp tests didn’t find any banned substances in Tarver doesn’t mean he was clean. The other testing was not done by WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, which doesn’t conduct tests but rather sets the standards and then accredits the labs that do the testing.

It’s highly possible that the additional testing included Carbon Isotope Ratio testing, which can detect the presence of exogenous testosterone even when an athlete’s testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio isn’t indicating the use of banned substances. That’s how Lamont Peterson was caught years ago. Smaller, smarter dosing can reap benefits without raising red flags.

(BoxingScene is continuing to look into this story and will run updates if and when more information is learned.)

Tarver is directing people to get the transcript of his hearing, though he hasn’t released it himself. Then again, the commission hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about the case.

That’s a problem. In a world where there’s less trust of professional athletes, people want to know more about what testing is being conducted, when the testing was done, and what the results were. And given that this is also a world in which those involved in organizing and policing other sports have been found to be blissfully ignorant of or sometimes even complicit in cheating, there’s a mandate for transparency.

In boxing, there’s still far too little that is known. What we do know, however, is there’s still far too little being done.

Tarver isn’t finding much support, though. He’s no longer the upstart who upset Roy Jones Jr. He’s not even the aging former light heavyweight who went up to the 200-pound division, went down to Australia and battered Danny Green.

Rather, he’s the fighter who once taunted Jones during the referee’s instructions at their rematch, asking “Got any excuses, tonight?” and then went on to be heard making his own excuses after he lost his championship to Bernard Hopkins in 2006. A year later, Tarver said he thought he might have been drugged.

“Something happened. I do not want to point the finger. I believe that there was a possibility that they got to me, or someone got to me with ordering room service, a drink of water or whatever,” Tarver said in 2007, according to an article at the time by Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.

“But I was not myself. As big as that fight was, I could not get into it mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or nothing. I was zapped for whatever reason. I cannot blame it on my trainer because we trained properly. We were ready. But when I went to bed and woke up that day, I was a zombie and I do not know what happened. My sister thought that maybe I could have been poisoned. Maybe somebody tampered with some food. My reflexes were not there, my counter punching ability was not there. Something went terribly wrong.”

He is the fighter who tested positive for drostanolone after a draw with Lateef Kayode in 2012, called the test result “a false positive” and said he “was not at any time attempting to gain an unfair or illegal advantage in my performance.”

He was suspended for a year, a punishment from the California athletic commission more befitting the crime than the six-month suspension he just received from New Jersey, a suspension retroactive to the date of his bout that may allow him to fight again. Tarver last week referenced California’s 2012-13 punishment as “a death sentence,” which is a poor choice of words given the potential harm a fighter could face in this sport, never mind against an opponent who was using performance-enhancing drugs.

Now he has two positive tests and no goodwill built up. Fans have heard enough excuses and conspiracy theories from athletes in various sports.

Tarver could still fight anyway. And that’s why his railing now resembles flailing, as he lashes out against everyone and everything. He has no money. He has no titles. He has no leverage.

All he has is his name. The only way he can repair it is for his next fight to be in court instead of the ring. It’s a long shot. He has little support, just as it was earlier in his career. He proved his doubters wrong back then. This time, however, it’s highly likely that Antonio Tarver will be done thanks to doing himself in.

“Fighting Words” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com