Holyfield was steroid cheat?

Yes.

 

Does anyone believe Shannon Briggs, Ike Ibeabuchi, Frank Bruno or Bruce Seldon are naturally built (all are obviously bigger AND at the same time more ripped than natural BB'ers of pre-PEDs era like John Grimek or Steve Reeves, and these two were absolutely elite..No, not boxers, but professional bodybuilders in the pre-steroid era)? Briggs was caught using PEDs, yes, but very late in his career. He was never caught - i.e. 'clean' (LOL) till late 00s, being twice as big as John Grimek.

 

So did Lance Armstrong.

 

A) This does not prove that "everyone" did them.

B) I will say it a third time, if it is true that ALL the top end guys did them, all it means is that the entire era wa was a Fraud and some downward guy was actually the best. It doesn't legitimize Holyfield, it denigrates Tyson, Lewis, Bowe, etc.

 

No, no, no, because "everyone" literally could not have had access to them. What "everyone" means is all the top end guys, and what that means is that some downward guy was the real best of the era, meaning that it wasn't really that great of an era.

 

This is the lie that just won’t go away. Lance did test positive. It was very early in his comeback - maybe even his first year that he won the Tour. If I remember correctly, he tested positive for corticosteroids but he was given a back-dated TUE for a “saddle sore” a week or two after he was notified of the positive test but prior to it being made known to the general public

 

That's why I specifically stated in my last sentence that it's a case of who is more clean (relatively speaking), than their contemporaries, as I'm not sure how any athlete can be 100% clean unless they live like how people lived in the stone-ages or something along those lines.

I know this topic is about 'steroids' specifically, but given that you're a pretty reasonable poster in this forum, I wanted to ask you a few questions about PED's more generally rather than just steroids.

Given that there are legal drugs that athletes are allowed to consume and there are illegal drugs that athletes aren't allowed to consume, and that there are new drugs coming out which are continuously being added to the 'banned' list and that there are other new drugs which are also coming out which are currently legal, that eventually either get banned or remain legal, where do we draw the line and say which drug should be legal and shouldn't be, without the line being arbitrary but objective instead?

OR

Do you think we should just ban any and every artificial chemical substance in existence (including protein shakes and their likes) and ensure every athlete remains 100% natural like an ancient Spartan / gladiator before the modern medicinal era? If yes, do we ensure that the average non-athletic public should be allowed access to artificial chemical substances that professional athletes like boxers aren't legally allowed access to or should they too be banned from the very same substances? In other words, the entire world be withheld from modern artificial chemical substances and we go back to living like how we used to in the ancient world before modern medicine, like the stone-ages for example.

AND

What do we do about undetectable drugs that simply cannot be detected in drug tests, especially ones that offer the same benefits as banned drugs? How do we solve this issue?

OR

do you think it's best to just let all the athletes consume whatever they want, however much they want?

 

These are all fine questions to discuss, but none of them can be allowed to cloud the issue that Holyfield took HGH, which is one of the most powerful PEDS that can be used, and illegal in its time.

Yeah, I get that someone else may have taken a mild pro-steroid and another guy may have taken a ,ild asthma medication, or something, but none of that is going to distract form the central issue, here.

 

Not trying to be pedantic, but how do you know Holyfield's opponents weren't also taking PEDS that are undetectable? If we agree that there exists undetectable PEDS, then not only do we have to question the 90's heavyweight scene for being a 'fraud' (as you labelled), but we will have to question the entire sport as a whole for being a 'fraud' even now, since the best may be someone below who doesn't have access to any such doping but loses to others who have access to undetectable doping.

So unless you can prove that all of Holyfield's opponents were clean and weren't consuming any undetectable PEDS, then there's insufficient evidence to prosecute Holyfield as guilty, as for their to be a guilty party in this scenario, there has to be indisputable proof that one boxer is 100% clean and there has to be 100% of his opponent having illegal drugs in his system.

 

I'm in agreement with you on this. It doesn't invalidate an era if a majority of people were on something. It just means in that era the fighters were carrying more muscle mass.
People assume that this started in the 90's it didn't. Yes HGH and others started then but there is plenty of evidence showing steriod use in sports from the 50's.

In 1984 The US ran a trial drug testing program in the 1984 Olympics and over 60% of particapants failed and that's not taking into account of the basic testing and the fact that the Soviets had boycotted due to the US boycotting Moscow 1980. There was an "office" fire that destroyed the test results. No country investing billions is ever going to call it out.
It doesn't mean everyone dopes it just means a lot do. It's just reality and passing tests doesn't mean anything at the top level of sport this is well documented for people who are interested.

Also letting everyone take PEDS doen't work either as two studies have clearly shown that performance gain varies from between 3 to 15% per individual. So in other words if an national level sprinter has high gain on yield then there suddenly challenging for gold. This was demonstrated by the Chinese who had female swimmers just in the top 200 and within a couple of years were built like dudes winning gold medals.

Lasty Lance Armstrong has been mentioned a couple of times but look at the case more closely. They were doing allsorts to gain an advantage not just injecting stuff in there butt cheeks. It's something that has always fascinated me about sport and the delusion by the public that nearly all of it is kosher it isn't and it never was. Human nature shows that people will always look for a short cut or an advantage and it's as old as sport itself.

If anyone doubts what I'm saying I will provide a mountain of reading material to back up the above.

 

Drug testing back then was probably mailing a cup to your house and mail it back when you or your buddy, wife pee in it.

 

I remember watching the men's 100m final back in 88. Seeing Ben Johnson so full of gear his eye balls were yellow tinged(liver function compromise) oh and the fact he looked like the hulk. It was later proven in that race that they were ALL juiced up. Although I said not everyone does it we have to accept certain sports like running cycling and boxing will have a higher percentage of participation due to power and endurance being key attributes.

 

This isn't the way the world works. You don't have to prove a negative. In fact, you literaally can't most of the time. Just bad logic.

 

This is one of the fallacies stated here that is easily disprovable.
Even If you work out very efficiently & naturally your rate of gain will slow. But it is nothing like very hard to put on any mass after only one year, no matter how effective you have been-I have never heard such an extreme claim that you are about done with gains within a year.
And all my experience & decades lifting & in gyms show otherwise.

Best evidence I can find, you work out & eat well enough to maximize your muscular potential, you may reach 1/2 what is ever possible within a year & a half. That is still a good ways from what you can ever accomplish.
And most people do not reach or approach their natural potential, so it is usually at least a bit, or much, more than that.

The average bloke can put on 35 lbs. more muscle than another average man with his build & structure---> of skeletal muscle. Lifetime. Not counting fat or connective tissue or water...
Obviously if you started off say as a skinny kid, or already bulked from say labor, you may ad more or more or less considering where you were compared to your genetic potential when you began weight training.
WITH PEDs it can be significantly to grotesquely more.

I have read that within 3 years you can hit 88%, 5 years, 97%. That is all IF you do it very efficiently. Most do not.
You can look at charts which will show how much gains will slow by the months & years.
Others take drugs to approach or surpass their natural potential.
I am strongly against that-especially when cheating to steal money victories glory from honest athletes.
Here is a great source of info, studies, links, a natural size & lean weight calculator...[url]http://www.weightrainer.net[/url]


Also the fact that some boxers are bigger than bodybuilders from so many decades ago does not prove that they juiced.
They might well have-often, dabbled, or never.
Although the difference in size between them & old timers was overstated-but also training has evolved greatly. That was relatively ancient times.
And the boxers cited likely ALL have bigger bone structures-& were taller-than the likes of Reeve & Grimek. Which means more natural potential.

CatchwtBoxing made some damn fine points. Y'all should listen to him.
One more thing: it is intellectually sloppy to claim all are using/dirty due to things like chemicals in food, accidental contamination, protein powder & legal supplements.

Sure there are some things not yet banned that are the equivalent of steroids, but usually you can tell by the class of drugs they are in how effective they *may* be.
Some hormones you consume-they do not have remotely the same effect.
Protein powder & other completely valid forms of regular food in different forms & supplements are *nothing* like shoving tons of androgens in your body, far more than you could ever make.
That is why stuff like gainer powders & whey are totally legal-& should be.

Let's try to be more careful about evaluating the data & jumping to sometimes psychologically convenient conclusions.