Bob Arum defends Memo Heredia

Heres an interesting look at the memo and marquez does he or does he not take steroids whatever its just an interesting read this is from a few years back Top Rank Inc. CEO Bob Arum, the promoter of RING No. 1-rated pound-for-pound fighter, Manny Pacquiao, weighed in on the presence of Angel Hernandez as the new strength and conditioning coach for RING lightweight champ Juan Manuel Marquez, given Hernandez***8217;s past connection to supplying world class track athletes Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery with performance-enhancing substances. Hernandez has been hired by Marquez (53-5-1, 39 KOs) to assist with the fighter***8217;s preparation for his third bout with Pacquiao (53-3-2, 38 KOs) on Nov. 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a move that has drawn the ire of Floyd Mayweather Jr***8217;s advisor, Leonard Ellerbe, as well as scrutiny from former BALCO founder Victor Conte, who has a history with Hernandez. But Arum characterized the recent attention drawn to Hernandez as an over-reaction, and defended Marquez***8217;s right to have him in camp. ***8220;I think that it would behoove all of the press to stop dealing in generalities,***8221; said Arum. ***8220;The way that I run an operation, a fighter can hire anybody that he wants to be his trainer. That***8217;s up to the fighter or the conditioner.***8221; Identified as Angel Hernandez during Episode 2 of HBO***8217;s 24/7 series, Hernandez, 36, is really Angel Heredia, according to Conte, and testified in a San Francisco Court that he supplied Jones and Montgomery with illegal substances, according to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation in May of 2008. In the report, Heredia admitted to giving the blood-booster EPO, growth hormone and insulin to Jones in 2000 at the request of her then-coach Trevor Graham, who was on trial. Heredia also sold banned substances to Montgomery. Having competed for Jamaica at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Graham sparked the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) in 2003. Conte served a prison stint for his work with illegal performance-enhancing drugs in numerous professional sports, and built a four-year career out of helping athletes to circumvent Olympic-style drug testing policies until BALCO was raided in 2003. Since 1988, however, Conte claims to have become an advocate for drug reform in sports. Conte runs SNAC, an acronym for Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, and supplies legal sports nutrition products and supplements. In addition, Conte has become aligned with fighters such as WBO/WBC bantamweight titleholder Nonito Donaire and IBF welterweight beltholder Andre Berto, and is pushing for a comprehensive, random method of drug testing boxers.***8220;There was a period of time where people like Victor Conte, and like this guy, Hernandez, dealt in steroids with some major athletes. But that***8217;s old, old news in this sense. Most of the intelligent conditioners, like Conte, if you read what he saying when he was handling Donaire, and this guy, who is now with Marquez, they know that you can achieve all of the benefits that you used to achieve with steroids with natural supplements,***8221; said Arum. ***8220;You can do that without any risk of illegality and without any of the dangers that steroids caused, like steroid rage and other longer term problems. So the idea that Conte, or this guy would be dealing in steroids with anybody to me makes no sense, because they have been through the legal system of the United States. Conte was in jail, and this guy apparently testified and got a suspended sentence. The last thing they would do would be to deal in illegal substances.***8221;