LAS VEGAS – Shakur Stevenson seemed pleased Thursday with the extent of performance-enhancing drug testing prior to his showdown with Oscar Valdez on Saturday night.

Comprehensive PED testing was a point of emphasis for Stevenson and his team during negotiations for their 130-pound title unification bout because Valdez tested positive for Phentermine, a substance banned by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association both in and out of competition, a month before he was allowed to box Brazil’s Robson Conceicao on September 10 in Tucson, Arizona.

“They came to see me four times, I think,” Stevenson told BoxingScene.com in reference to VADA’s sample collectors. “I was very comfortable with it. I hope that they went to see him more than they came to see me because I feel like he was the one that got caught cheating. I never got caught cheating, so I think he should still be, this week, getting drug tested.”

The unbeaten Stevenson has purposefully used the word “cheating” throughout the buildup toward a main event ESPN will televise Saturday night from MGM Grand Garden Arena (10 p.m. ET). Valdez’s rival knows it gets underneath the WBC super featherweight champion’s skin, yet Stevenson firmly believes Valdez knowingly used a banned substance while preparing to face Conceicao.

Valdez reiterated his stance Thursday that he made an innocent mistake by ingesting a stimulant, not a PED. The two-time Mexican Olympian also pointed out the disparity in VADA’s list of banned substances and the World Anti-Doping Agency’s guidelines, which all state and tribal commissions affiliated with the Association of Boxing Commissions follow.

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe Athletic Commission licensed Valdez to face Conceicao because WADA, unlike VADA, permits the use of Phentermine both in and out of competition.

“The fact that I got accused of being a cheater, it really hurt me,” Valdez told BoxingScene.com on Thursday. “It really brought me down. I made a human mistake by paying more attention to that than my fight in front of me, which was the Conceicao fight, and I saw that I didn’t do my best performance. [Last year] was a great learning experience. It’s definitely helped me become the fighter that I am right now. There’s nothing anybody can tell me right now, nothing Shakur Stevenson can tell me right now, that will make me lose focus on the main [objective], just to win the fight.”

The focus of fans and media should be on this elite-level, high-stakes bout between unbeaten 130-pound champions. It is impossible – in good conscience, anyway – to ignore one of boxing’s primary problems, brought to the forefront by the Valdez debacle of late last summer.

Even when this disorganized sport’s power brokers get it right related to PED testing – as has been the case with Stevenson-Valdez – we’re still left with what’s too often unsaid, that, occasional good intentions notwithstanding, the lives of boxers at the top level are valued over those that perform on their undercards. Whereas Stevenson and Valdez have been tested extensively for PEDs over the past couple months, other boxers contracted to perform on their undercard are at absolute best subject to comparatively infrequent commission testing.

Imagine if Major League Baseball, for all intents and purposes, publicly acknowledged that it would test Aaron Judge for PEDs, but not Tim Locastro, the Yankees’ fifth outfielder. Even if MLB did do that, the consequences aren’t considered life or death.

Every boxer – from Stevenson and Valdez, to every unknown four-round opponent – quite literally risks his life each time he walks up those steps. A boxer’s return to his loved ones is never guaranteed, yet the inconsistency of PED testing in boxing doesn’t reflect the seriousness of this brutal business.

Money, a common culprit in virtually every vocation, is the primary reason this disparity in PED testing in boxing exists. Most rational, compassionate people want boxers to be protected from those willing to gain artificial advantages in the ring.

Testing, primarily administered in boxing by VADA, is expensive. For thorough testing – the random compilation of blood and/or urine samples – typically can cost anywhere between $18,000 and $25,000, depending on how many visits are made to the participants’ homes or training camps.

That’s cost-prohibitive for promoters and fighters, and in a sport that has always desperately needed unified federal regulation leaves boxing in its current dangerous predicament, a sport susceptible to cheating if a fighter chooses to do so. At this point, boxers mostly in televised main events undergo comprehensive PED testing, and that’s not even the case in certain instances.

“First of all, it’s prohibitively expensive,” promoter Lou DiBella told BoxingScene.com. “You could never do it on a small show, like even a small, televised show. You could never do testing on say a ‘ShoBox’ event. Fighters could be in the WBC program or whatever, but you can’t really do testing. … You’re never gonna get to a place where everyone’s tested because it’s way too expensive. But the real problem as to why there’s not adequate testing is the inadequate regulation of professional boxing. Forget about Valdez. Most states don’t even do MRIs, forget about steroid testing.”

The inadequate regulation DiBella mentioned led to Valdez’s licensure for the Conceicao fight.

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe Athletic Commission felt it had to adhere to WADA’s regulations. The WBC was not under any obligation, however, to sanction Valdez-Conceicao as a championship match.

The WBC pays VADA $10,000 per month to run its “Clean Boxing Program.” But when VADA’s standards and WADA code conflicted, the WBC sanctioned Valdez-Conceicao as a title fight anyway.

Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the WBC, tried to explain away his sanctioning organization’s decision to approve Valdez-Conceicao as a 130-pound title bout. The bottom line, though, is VADA either has the autonomy to run the “Clean Boxing Program” or it doesn’t.

More importantly, no one in boxing wants to accept financial responsibility for comprehensive PED testing for all boxers, whether it’s handled by VADA or a comparable competitor that might be willing and able to do it cheaper.

Television networks are funded by deep-pocketed corporations, but those companies already provide sizable license fees to promoters for content. Couldn’t portions of those license fees be set aside for PED testing?

Then again, ABC, CBS, ESPN, FOX and NBC don’t directly pay for the NFL’s testing program.

Placing that financial burden on state governments isn’t the answer, either. Though some commissions perform minimal PED testing, asking taxpayers to make the private business of boxing safer, rather than those that make money in it, is illogical.

It primarily remains the financial responsibility of promoters and, to a lesser degree, boxers to ensure that this sport is as safe as possible, certainly safer than it is now at every level.

“I like defending the fact that we have to have a clean sport,” Valdez said. “This is not baseball. This is not basketball, where you can take those types of drugs. We’re risking our lives and we take that very seriously.”

Unfortunately, the most influential figures in this sport still don’t take it nearly seriously enough.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.