Tell me about the history of PEDs in boxing

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So just a year after Floyd lost the first match where he was destroyed in 3 rounds and the elite of US sport start getting their hands on 'roids. Floyd suddenly is 4 kilo (9lbs) heavier and has brutal KO power. yep, nothing to see here...

 

The rematch was held before the 1960 Olympics where it was used by the American weight lifting team and three years before steroids started to get into American Football (together with weight training). So, no, probably nothing to see there,

Bobo Olson gained over 20 lbs in a similar time in 1956, years before even the American weight lifting team started with steroids and before the steroid in question had even hit the market. And Pastrano had similar gains the year before that.

We know that the Soviets injected testosterone into their weight lifters at that time, but no suggestions of use in American sports until Ziegler introduced Dianabol to the weight lifting team before the 1960 Olympics.

 

"Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the use of anabolic steroids was confined largely to the professional levels of sport. In the Eastern bloc, programs of training went as far as forcing some athletes to take anabolic steroids.[7] In the United States, sports physicians, including Ziegler, and medical texts were still widely proclaiming that anabolic steroids were ineffective in helping athletes gain muscle. These doctors did acknowledge the usefulness of anabolic steroids for debilitated patients. The package insert for Dianabol, a common anabolic steroid used at the time, stated, "Anabolic steroids do not enhance athletic ability."[6] Despite these warnings, use of anabolic steroids began in competition bodybuilding, in track and field events, such as the shot put, and in other sports where performance depended on muscle strength or speed of recovery during training.[8]

At the end of the 1960s, Science published a study on the effects of Dianabol on athletes. This open label study, conducted by J.P. O'Shea and colleagues at Oregon State University, confirmed the muscle building effects of anabolic steroids on athletes that followed a high protein diet.[9] Two years later, O'Shea replicated the results in a double blind design.[6][10]

At the beginning of the 1970s, sporting organizations, including the IOC and NCAA, declared the use of anabolic steroids unethical, but with no effective means of testing athletes, the issue remained academic.[6]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergogenic_use_of_anabolic_steroids


Steroids wasn't tested for in Olympics prior to 1972, but in 1972 a judo practitioner from Mongolia was dq'sd for using Dianabol.

In 1976, testing was more wide spread, but almost all who got busted for steroids was weight lifter. The exception was a Polish discus thrower.

In Moscow in 1980 no one officially failed a test, but other inquires showed a widespread use. In 1984 a wrester got busted for steroids, along with several weight lifters, a hammer thrower and a javelin thrower. So this was the first time someone in a sport that also requires a lot of stamina tested positive for steroids. The other have overwhelmingly been from sports with short energy burst, like weight lifting and discus throwing. Also in later Olympics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Olympic_Games

 

It was until 2012 a boxer tested positive for steroids in the Olympics. A few also tested positive in the following Olympics. It's very hard to believe that boxing would have been a pioneer sport for steroids looking at these records.

Vitaly tested positive as an amateur in 90's, though, and missed the 1996 Olympice because of it.

 

My best guess is that steroids came into boxing the same way it came into American Football, through people from sports where they were widely used. Mackie Shilstone of course comes to mind, since he was well aquainted with weight lifting and really introduced a shift in how boxing looked on strength and conditioning. I'm not saying this a given in any way, but it is a point where practices from fields which had been penetrated by steroids came into boxing.

Doesn't have to be Shilstone per se, could also be a secondary effect of him seriously introducing weight lifting as something that could have benefits, and boxers getting into touch with weight lifting because of that and being introduced to steroids that way. But we know that Morrison took them the years after that and it's not wild speculation to say that Holyfield did as well.

It might have come have come earlier also. From boxers that came from American Football and/or incorporated weight lifting into their training. Because some did even before Shilstone, though the mainstream was against it.

Yes, this is speculative and it's in the nature of a discussion such as this to make guesses about what some fighters might have done without any hard proof whatsoever, but this is currently my thinking on the matter for what it's worth.

 

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Behold the perfect evolution of ‘roids in boxing. Anybody who doesn’t notice the massive leap from 1960 when gear started being used by the US elite sportsmen is a mug.

 

One Hundred percent agree. It is heavyweight boxing where the tell tale signs first appear that something was going on.

The people defending purity and innocence within champions are basing it on them not being tested at a time tests didn’t happen & when nothing was illegal anyway. So there isn’t an argument unless you want to quibble over it being steroids or another type of enhancement that was used then.

my theory is that the effective gains and benefits were made at elite level and an underground industry that everyone knows about has been at play since 1960. An evolution in sports science that has made boxing more accessible to increasingly bigger and bigger sized athletes that simply could not exist before in boxing. They broke the 200lb barrier then the 220, then the 230 and so on and so forth. The science did it.

They overcome the limitations on naturally slower but stronger taller men. And that’s the answer. The science has been at play. None of this is natural. But at least the field has been levelled. Broadly speaking of course.

It stands to reason that when Rich men own athletes whose earning potential is restricted in a sport where being bigger and faster or younger for longer that every investment is going to happen.

Look at the money behind these fighters. …These, decent, wholesome investors of champions with such outstanding morals that boxing has always been awash with since the beginning of time!

 

The top 10 HWs in the 60's weren't really bigger than the top 10 in the 30's and 40's, despite the general population increasing in size. There was a dip in the 50's, probably due to the fact that the generation growing up during the depression was shorter on average than the one before and after.

In the late 70's, size started to increase, though.

 

Sonny Liston, Ernie Terrell, Muhammad Ali number among the most successful of that decade. Each over 210lb. They ruled from 1962 until the draft took out Muhammad in 1967. Sure there is Frazier at the end of the 1960s and Floyd at the beginning of the 1960s but both of these represented different types of fighters too. Had we seen punches as fast as Floyd before? Had we seen anyone quite as nonstop as Frazier before? Maybe the science was already at play?

 

If you hand pick the biggest, of course they will be bigger than the average. Doesn't say much.

Take the top 10 from the 30's and 40's and they will be as big as the top 10 from the 60's. And, yes, the biggest three of the top 10 from any of the decades will be bigger than the average of the top 10 of other decades. Of course.

Yes, Floyd was very fast. But he was at his quickest before Dianobol had even hit the market. He would have to be using before steroids were used even in weight lifting.

So look for the simplest explanation. There have been standouts in every era. Dempsey, Louis, Armstrong, Robinson etc were all physically exceptional. So either Floyd was just one of these or he was using steroids before they had even been developed in the US. That first alternative seems far less far fetched to me.

The further forward you get in time, the more likelier it gets of course. But even the generation that turned pro in mid 60's (Frazier, Quarry, Bonavena etc) were nothing special in physical stature compared to earlier eras.

 

The point is, three of the five champions from the 1960s happened to be among the biggest top heavyweights who ranked in that decade. This was new. I don’t think anyone else was both heavier and taller than Terrell or Ali. Williams was comparable in size. DeJohn perhaps. But the difference in comparing the largest heavyweights listed in the ranks of the 1930s is that, aside from Carnera, The champions were all smaller than the biggest guys. Schmeling, Sharkey, Braddock and Louis. They were eclipsed by the size of bit part players of the decade like buddy Baer, Jose Santa and Abe Simon who were bigger than they were.

who knows, In later decades they might have been the best ones?

I realise I left out Max Baer, but I’m making a theory here. Besides, among the people who invested heavily in creating champions, perhaps managers decided super heavyweights had went out of fashion by the 1940s and 50s? Perhaps it was considered they ate too much, were too limited and got injured too much?

you have to consider that often it is money that decides who gets financed to become champion.

By the 1960s there were less limitations. maybe there was a different appetite for what could now work?

 

The three biggest champions of the 30's were Carnera, Baer and Louis. They were bigger together and on average than Liston, Ali and Terrell (who was a belt holder and never a champion, but even if we include him). So however you look at it the 60's weren't a special case in terms of size.

I'm not as sceptical to steroids being in boxing in the 60's as I am to them being there in the 50's. We know that steroids were in American sports in the 60's, but in the 50's there's no hint of it.

But I dispute that there was a change in boxers physical and appearance and size in the 60's. That started to come around in the 70's. Not saying that's evidence of steroids either, but at least we're seeing an increase in size in that decade.

 

Yes I think you are right. The changes were probably more prevalent by 1970 than they had been early 1960s. As you say that is not evidence itself of steroids just visible examples of “changes” that could not occur earlier.

 

PED's can massively, improve:
Muscle mass
Force / power generation
Reaction Speed
Aerobic Endurance (Cardiovascular Endurance)
Anaerobic Endurance (Speed Endurance, Muscle Fatigue)
Recovery Speed
Injury Resistance
Eyesight
Memory
Muscle Memory
Reducing Anxiety
Reducing Tremors
Energy Levels
And more.

Musicians regularly take performance enhancing drugs when performing. Chess players take performance enhancing drugs. Dart players, pool and snooker players, dancers, E-Sport gamers all take an abundance of PED 's. Ffs, surgeons have gone on record to say they take a cocktail of PED's in order to both study for AND to perform a surgery. There is a 0% chance that the general population takes more PED's than professional athletes. There is a -100% chance that the general population takes more PED's than professional combat sports athletes who have hundreds of millions of dollars and their lives on the line lmao. The notion that "we have no idea how many athletes take PED's so it's not reasonable or fair to assume" just shows ignorance about the topic. That's like saying "we have no idea how many surfers know how to swim unless an athlete is specifically documented to have had swimming lessons". By virtue of their profession, we know they can swim. Likewise with PED's and high level sports. PED's aren't a boost for sports at the highest level, they're a prerequisite for sports at the highest level. Athletes usually start taking them at college age, with some even starting in high school. It's not physically possible to workout multiple times a day, 7 days a week for decades without them. Professional sports as you know it would not exist if a majority of athletes didn't take PED's. Messi got HGH injections as a child ffs. Years ago NBA players straight up just asked the commissioner if he could take HGA off the banned substances list because it was used so common. There are no clean sports and no dirty sports, just sports that have more or less drug testing.

 

Similarly, those of you who are saying "this old boxer couldn't have taken PED's because they didn't want to be muscle bound" are:

1. Conflating PED's with steroids. Not having access to dianobol =\= not having access to PED's.
2. Falsely believing that steroids only function is to increase muscle mass.
3. Falsely believing that taking steroids automatically make you huge. Lance Armstrong is built like a twig and took a ridiculous amount of steroids.

Again, and I'm not just saying it to be a dick, but most people including most dedicated sports fan have a severe gap in knowledge when it comes to PED's