Tweet
I laugh when people bring up 'roids for boxers, especially from fights/fighters 20+ years ago. Nobody cared back then. No one cared in baseball and no one cared in boxing. It's a much bigger deal now but trying to apply today's standard to the past is silly. People who want to bring up Mosley's 2003 steroid use or RJJs use in the 90s are just trolling. No one cared then about it and the fact that they used doesn't change anything now.
Boxing inherently is a sport about hurting the other guy so any advantage, legal or illegal, can injure an opponent. But no one knows that taking a steroid or an illegal drug to cut weight could result in potentially career-altering damage to an opponent. It's possible but there's really no way to tell if taking a steroid results in the punch being juuuust hard enough to cause permanent damage. But we know, from documented cases, that loading your gloves does. It ends careers. It kills people. This is not disputed.
All cheating is not created equal and loading your gloves is no longer boxing, it's assault with a deadly weapon. Would most boxers do it? I would hope not and the ones I know I don't think would have. But if that answer is yes then that says something about the lack of ethics in the sport. My goal in the ring was to beat the other guy but not illegally. So I wouldn't have plastered my hands or slipped a razor into my glove any more than I would have carried a baseball bat into the ring.
Boxing inherently is a sport about hurting the other guy so any advantage, legal or illegal, can injure an opponent. But no one knows that taking a steroid or an illegal drug to cut weight could result in potentially career-altering damage to an opponent. It's possible but there's really no way to tell if taking a steroid results in the punch being juuuust hard enough to cause permanent damage. But we know, from documented cases, that loading your gloves does. It ends careers. It kills people. This is not disputed.
All cheating is not created equal and loading your gloves is no longer boxing, it's assault with a deadly weapon. Would most boxers do it? I would hope not and the ones I know I don't think would have. But if that answer is yes then that says something about the lack of ethics in the sport. My goal in the ring was to beat the other guy but not illegally. So I wouldn't have plastered my hands or slipped a razor into my glove any more than I would have carried a baseball bat into the ring.
Comment