By Steve Kim
Earlier today, Golden Boy Promotions released a statement regarding the fact that Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez had tested positive for a trace level amount of clenbuterol as he looks ahead to his May 5th rematch with unified middleweight champion, Gennady Golovkin.
So the question is, what is the status of this fight that is scheduled to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas?
Eric Gomez, the president of Golden Boy Promotions told BoxingScene.com on Monday afternoon - "I'm confident everything's going to be fine. They're going to do additional testing but I'm confident. It was a very low amount. He's still in Mexico, he's been training in Mexico and he's coming to San Diego now. It's probably out of his system now."
There have been other cases where athletes from Mexico have tested positive for this banned substance due to tainted meat, which include boxers like Francisco Vargas and Erik Morales in recent years.
"It's unfortunate for athletes in Mexico that they don't have the same strict regulation with the food and with the additives that we do here," said Gomez, who says Alvarez - who fought Golovkin to a draw back in September - has no objection to extra drug testing leading into the rematch. "Of course, he has no problems with that."
This upcoming bout will be under the auspices of VADA. Gomez pointed out that Canelo has been drug tested for his last twelve fights.
"For every fight they test him like a dozen times. So you're talking about a fighter who's been tested around a 150 times, blood and urine, everything. And he's been clean, everything's been fine," Gomez said.
While Alvarez will start his camp this week, Golovkin is already up in Big Bear getting ready for the return bout.
"We're going to continue as if there's still a fight till we hear something different from the Nevada Athletic Commission," said Tom Loeffler, the head of GGG Promotions, to BoxingScene.com.
"We'll have to see what the fallout is but that's why Abel (Sanchez) has always insisted on testing for 'Triple G' fights because he pushes so hard and has tremendous conditioning He never want to leave any doubts around Gennady's training and Gennady feels that out of respect for the sport, there should be a level playing field.
"So we'll have to see the reaction to this positive test for 'Canelo'"
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com