Tell me about the history of PEDs in boxing

You are partially right-but unfair with your assessment of Ali.
Maybe it was unclear-my saying it harmed his performance was not meant to obviate that the INTENT was to increase it.
But it hurting him is very relevant too.

However they did not even make steroids a schedule 1 drug & illegal until a decade after this fight.
An what he took-you have any indication it was illegal?

Also I highly doubt no other fighter took this specific & similar drugs to lose weight.
For years before & some after the fight baseball players took "greenies" & similar amphetamines for energy, had them in bowls at some dugouts-I am against all of it, but the sport did not make them illegal.

There is a world of difference between slimming down the wrong way-& Ali was working very hard on diet & exercise too-hurting your abilities significantly...
And openly taking something not to trannsform your body into something otherwise impossible, but get back in shape.

I mean morally; I am against it all, but Ali was not trying to cheat or making himself a different beast or even helping himself.
You gotta have such ethical nuances recognized if you want to be fair.

 

The 1960 Rome US Olympic team was pumped up on gear by the inventor of dianabol John Bosley Ziegler. So every elite US fighter from around this period was likely on 'roids.

 

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/08/article-2230142-15EB3D29000005DC-130_1024x615_large.jpg
Picture of Mike Tyson off gear next to former featherweight champion Barry McGuigan. Probably gives an idea of his true size had he never touched gear.

 

I don't think it would be automatic at all for the use to spread directly to all other sports. It wouldn't be clear to the other sports that something that possibly benefitted weight lifting would benefit their sport, if they even heard about it. In fact, not even all on the weight lifting team took it.

 

It would be blantantly obvious it would improve their performance. Not to mention boxing is where the money is, not weight lifting. It's a very natural fit for 'roid pushers to link up with the boxing industry. More so than the bodybuilding industry that was nothing but a fringe freak show at the time.

 

Why would it be blatatnly obvious? Boxers at the time wanted nothing to do with weight lifting, since they thought it made them slow and cumbersome. So why would something that benefitted a sport boxers wanted nothing to do with be seen to benefit boxing? And at the Olympics 1960, not even all American weight lifters were convinced it was a benefit. But boxers should somehow be?

If they even heard of it by the time if the 1960 Olympics, which I'm not even sure of, I see little reason as to why they should be inspired by anything in weight lifting, seeing as how they disdained lifting weights.

 

Right. People today make sweeping assumptions with zero evidence.

The members of the 1960 Olympic Boxing team weren't even decided until a couple weeks before the Olympics began.

And there wasn't some U.S. government authority handing out "dianobol" and telling every athlete on the Olympic team in every sport they had to take this stuff right now. (Who would that have been exactly?) Hell, black athletes from the south in the late 1950s/early 1960s weren't exactly trusting of doctors to start with.

The way U.S. boxing teams were determined for the Olympics back then didn't lend themselves to any type of large scale cheating, at all, because nobody knew who was going.

The number of boxers who were "locks" to make Olympic teams, only to lose a month or so before the Olympics in the U.S. Box-Offs are too numerous to even count.

Riddick Bowe and Ray Mercer weren't supposed to be on the 1988 Olympic Team. Robert Salters and Michael Bentt were, until they lost in the Box-offs weeks before. Jeremy Williams was supposed to be on the 1992 Olympic team, until Montell Griffin beat him in a box-off weeks before. Ricky Womack was supposed to be on the 1984 Olympic team, until Holyfield beat him weeks before. Marvis Frazier was supposed to be on the 1980 Olympic team, until James Broad wiped him out in one round.

 

I think I remember a study or experiment from around the time of the 1960 Olympics where the weight lifters competed against the track athletes in a short sprint (10-15 yards), a standing vertical jump, and a standing broad jump and the weight lifters won. If that is true, it probably convinced anybody who questioned the benefit of PEDs, that PEDs would improve their performance in any sport. A boxer or other athlete would benefit from anything that would cut body fat, increase lean muscle, and make his body more lean, in addition PEDS help athletes to recover quicker from workouts. As somebody (I wish I could remember the poster's name) said on this board, "if a guy who changed tires for a living took PEDs it would make him better at changing tires."

When I watch 1960s professional heavyweight boxing, one guy just looks noticeably bigger, faster, and stronger than his opposition. In the 1970s, the opposition seems to have caught up and they were no longer dwarfed in size, speed, or strength, the playing field looked much more level. There can be a lot of theories for why that occurred, but I'll go with the most obvious.

 

Pete Rademacher wasn't dwarfed and didn't dwarf anyone he fought in the Olympics. Ed Sanders wasn't dwarfed and didn't dwarf anyone at the Olympics. Francesco de Piccoli and Bekker were the same size in 1960.

While Buster Mathis would've been twice as big as anyone in the Olympics in 1964, because he was so heavy, he broke his thumb and didn't go. And Frazier, while short, wasn't dwarfed by anyone.

Foreman and his opponent in 68 were the same size. Stevenson was as big as his opponents in 72 and 76, although his opponent in 1980 was short. Biggs and Damiani were the same size, as were Tillman and DeWit. As were Mercer and his South Korean opponent, and Bowe and Lewis.

I just have no idea what you're referring to. Who was noticeably bigger in the 1960s in heavyweight boxing, and who caught up in size in the 1970s at heavyweight?

Give some examples.

 

If you have ANY footage of Vasili Alexiev beating Bob Beamon in a short sprint, please post. That would make my day.

 

I think you're referring to Ali.

And that was the case even before the Olympics, tbf. He was not only Americas best amateur LHW but also their best HW, while being just above 180 lbs. He was always a freak.

But that is why I started this thread, since the question remains. Steroids were around, we know that, but how did boxing react to them?

Ellis is an interesting case, since he was gaining a lot of lean weight around the time when steroids were breaking through. And if he was taking them, why wouldn't Ali, who had the same trainer and physio?

The case against would be that steroids were still heavily connected to weight lifting, which boxing saw as a no no back then. And Pacheco was also a consiencentious physician that you wouldn't believe would prescribe something with known side effects, but, at the time, unknown benefits to a boxer.

 

This is just wrong. Early testosterone adverts were marketed at giving people extra energy. Of course that would help boxers.

 

Which were these adverts?

As you can read in the article about the San Diego Chargers the athletes themselves had no clue about steroids. It was their strength coach, who came directly from the weight lifting team. And the doctors, who advised against them.

Ali and Eliis had no strength coach coming from weight lifting. Only a doctor, that likely would have said the same as the Charger's doctors if the subject ever been broached.

 

Bokaj, my perception is based on what I've seen on video and my belief is that prior to Ali there were no athletic boxers who were 6-2 or 3, 210-15. Then Ali came along and something changed. Within a few years there was Norton, Foreman, Lyle, Bugner, then Dokes, Page, Tubbs, Thomas, Witherspoon, Snipes, Coetzee, C.Williams, Douglas, Tucker, Smith, and then even bigger ones like Bowe, Lewis, the K brothers, Joshua, Fury, Wilder (I'm aware that his weight is not that high, but his speed, strength, length, and power make me include him), and many more. I didn't list everybody, just the ones that came quickly to mind.

IMO heavyweight boxers before Ali and heavyweight boxers during and after Ali are not the same. I'm not going to argue with people who think that the Baers are the same as the later fighters. If someone believes that, I don't care. I'm just answering your post and letting you know why I suspect that something changed other than evolution in the 60-70s.

 

I agree that there was a change some time during that period, roughly 1960-1990, the question is when,