Everybody's on steroids?

High level fighters, definitely not. Run of the mill part timers? Yeah I'd think so.

 

If there are any clean fighters in boxing (and that in itself is a bit of a spectrum) we've probably never heard of them, or they're just some no-name padding out an up and comers record.

The higher up you get the more probable it is that fighters are taking something illegal for a performance bonus. Enter the top fifteen and I feel confident in saying that no one isn't taking something illegal, though the degree of cheating and the exact substances they're on will differ wildly, from fat burners and basic stuff that's easily detectable, to more complex stacks and experimental drugs like whatever garbage Jarrell Miller was (is?) on.

 

More like the ones most likely to get busted.

 

there are no clean athletes of any standing, in any sport.

 

Yup, on a probably scale I would agree.

They're more likely to "roll the dice" and make stupid mistakes, buy over the counter supplements that have banned ingredients on the PEDs list and get popped.

 

If that's the case how do you explain Marita Koch's 400m record and Florence Griffiths Joyner's 100m world record and a few other track and field records from the 80's still standing today?

If everyone is doping, how can doping athletes now with access to modern PED's, training methods, lighter more aerodynamic clothing and far superior running shoes not break the records set in the 80's?

I too at one stage thought pretty much everyone was doping but I don't know now. While I do think it's very prevalent in sports I don't think it's universal. If it was all the records from the 80's and 90's would no longer stand as I'd assume modern PED's combined with modern training methods are superior to what they were taking back in the 80's.

 

a couple records standing just shows they were ahead of their time athletically. everyone is juiced to the gills.

 

Lol it's the high level guys who get the good harder to detect stuff. Even in the UFC with USADA which is considered a very high standard for sports drug testing it's usually the lower level guys who get busted and the longer suspensions. There's a famous quote that, a drug test is just an IQ test, the real pros know how not to get caught.

 

I think we will see the negative results of PEDs on fighters health in years to come, there is a big risk when seeking the big reward.

 

Bigger loopholes in the testing back then allowed them to cycle for longer periods in the off-season. The anabolics haven’t really improved, the guys today are taking the same substances that have been around for 60 years. Synthetic GH has been available since the late 80s.

 

It's not just a couple of records though, I think there's 12 still standing from the 80's and way more from the 90's.

And if they were ahead of their time athletically couldn't it be possible that some athletes are just superior even without PED's?

For example the American cyclist Greg Le Mond won the Tour de France in 1986 but then got shot in a hunting accident and his team were unhappy with his performance after returning and said he had to take PED's, so was fired from the best team in cycling at that time and then joined a minor team and then still won the Tour de France in 1989 and 1990 beating guys that had either already been caught doping or would be caught doping and set stage records that would stand for many years after he retired, while in a minor team with team mates that wouldn't have been able to assist him as the elite teams by using them for drafting purposes.

Personally I think some athletes are just genetic freaks combined with an insane drive to win and many other athletes have to use PED's to just keep up with these athletes. So yeah the majority are doping, including the very top guys, but I do think it's possible to at the elite level and be clean.

 

Not everybody is on steroids, but everybody at the top level is on PED's.

 

Fighters pre 80's were doing coke and injecting stimulants into their eyes. PED use didn't start in the 80's. That is when steroids got more popular though.

 

Greg Lamonde just never stopped taking PEDs lmao. He wasn't so talented that he won without them, he just never stopped taking them. It's not possible for a clean athlete to compete with similarly talented doped athletes, let alone dominate them. That's not how physiology works, and more importantly not how statistics or bell curves work.

Let's use sprinting as an example.

In 2012, Usain Bolt ran a 9.62 in the 100m and got a gold medal. He has never tested positive for PED's.

Every single athlete besides Bolt in that particularly race event has tested positive for PED's, with the person that came second, Yohan Blake, running a 9.75. Yohan Blake is the second fastest person in human history. The difference between 9.75m and 9.63m in sprinting terms, is not close.

Yohan Blake, the second fastest person of all time who we know was doping, is significantly slower than Usain Bolt, who most people think is clean.

This means that for Usain Bolt to be clean, every other athlete in that race, of which outside of Yohan Blake also include the 3rd, 4th and 5th fastest people of all time mind you, would actually have to be not just a tenth to a quarter of a second than Bolt, which is already massive, but between half a second and an entire second slower than Usain Bolt naturally, which is insane. It would also mean that if Usain Bolt WAS on drugs, he'd potentially be capable of running the 100m in less than 9 seconds. That's ****ing bonkers.

What's more likely, that the natural genetic difference in talent between #1 and #2, is greater than the difference in talent between #2 and #1000, and that Usain Bolt is capable of running a sub 9 second 100m time? OR that Usain is on drugs?

Ditto with Lamonde, Armstrong, Flojo, Barry Bonds and every person who people have ever said "nah they're just a once in a trillion genetic freak". You can't have hundreds of once in a trillion genetic freaks running around lol.

Imagine if the best boxer of all time was SRR, and the second and third best boxers of all time were Caleb Plant and Caleb Truax. Or that the top 3 heavyweights of all time are Ali, Joe Louis and Holmes, and then the 4th-6th best heavyweights of all time were Charles Martin, Bermaine Stiverne and Lucas Browne. You'd have to believe that this hypothetical is not just capable of happening in sports, but common place, for the statistical impossibility of the "genetic freak" you believe in to make sense.

Also athletes in the 70's were just more doped than today's doped athletes. That's not prove that today's athletes are clean, just cleanER.

 

Yes, Nonito donaire. Full of integrity, never once let a needle touch him, even when they proposed the idea, he told them he believed too much in his own talent.

Then there are guys like Paulie Malignaggi who endear that it's not about the peds because everybody's on it, so it comes down to who has the best cocktail or elixir? If course he himself was clean. And never blew the whistle on others by naming them flat out