The state of heavyweight steroid testing, circa 1992

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by cross_trainer, Aug 23, 2021.



  1. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    From: https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1992/10/29/Lewis-Ruddock-spar-over-steroids/7345720334800/

    Just a few highlights:

    "LONDON -- Razor Ruddock challenged Lennox Lewis Thursday to take a steroid test before their heavyweight elimination bout Saturday. [...]

    Lewis is not contractually bound to be clean of steroids for the bout. However, Ruddock, as an overseas fighter, must be tested before the fight.

    'I've had experience of this,' Ruddock said. 'When I fought Mike Tyson twice, he didn't have a steroids test. But we are in a different position now in this fight against Lewis.'

    WBC President Jose Sulaiman said steroids are not on his organization's list of prohibited substances[...]."


    ...Well. Yeah. So that was the early 90s.
     
  2. Bokaj

    Bokaj Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Steroids were probably rife in the sport back then. Almost a decade later Jones and his opponent both tested positive, but since it was out of competition nothing happened. To this day I'd say that the attitude in boxing is quite laissez faire when it comes to PEDs.
     
  3. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    From a conservative, traditionalist sport like boxing (where some people still think weight training is bad for you, and want to train like Joe Louis), this attitude is a bit peculiar. Schizophrenic, almost.

    Unless it reflects boxing's general skepticism toward new approaches generally, I guess. After all, if modern laboratory potions don't work, why bother banning them?
     
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  4. Bokaj

    Bokaj Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    The tradionalist strain in boxing never ceases to amaze me. Fair enough to think that weight training doesn't bring any real benefit (there are after all very successful boxers in the modern era who don't use them), but to say they make you stiff and robotic when they have been used by track and field athletes for decades. Michael Jordan trained with weights ffs. Would anyone say he was stiff and robotic?
     
  5. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    I'm much more tolerant of the traditionalist strain, although I don't fit into that camp myself all that well.

    Boxing is conservative for a good reason: If you innovate in a stupid way, you get hit hard in the face. Trainers have been refining their craft for over 300 years, with huge cumulative support from society in terms of money and manpower over that time.

    Now, does that mean they're always right? Well, no. I happen to think they're wrong about a lot of the stuff where sports medicine clashes with boxing orthodoxy. And you'll also get some superstitious broscience weirdness developing in boxing gyms as well.

    Nevertheless, boxing tradition is a pretty solid guide, with the weight of literal centuries behind its advice. If they tell you to punch a certain way, or run a certain number of miles, it's probably (usually...) because ten thousand other guys before you were successful with a similar prescription.

    EDIT: To refer briefly back to the Shilstone thread, I think it's healthy to bear in mind that there were probably a lot of failed wannabe-revolutionaries in Shilstone's mold who came -- and failed -- before him. We roll our eyes at the old, crotchety boxing trainers who dismissed Shilstone's methods as something that didn't work, "back in my day..." But y'know, they'd probably encountered guys who wanted to bring boxing into the age of modern science before. And I bet most of those attempts had failed. They happened to have been wrong with Shilstone, but past experience was in their favor. They were not irrational ostriches sticking their heads in the sand.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2021
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  6. Bokaj

    Bokaj Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Yeah, no doubt the classic stuff (shadow boxing, heavy bag, sparring, road work etc) is still the essence of boxing training, I just find it bemusing (and somewhat amusing) how black and white things sometimes get.
     
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  7. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    Yeah, that's fair. Think of boxing's conservatism as an immune system to keep out nonsense. Sometimes it goes into overdrive.

    (Contrast martial arts, which are a much more modern, progressive phenomenon in the West, and perhaps for this reason are more vulnerable to McDojofication, chi voodoo, and faddish nonsense.)

    It will eventually subside as weight training ever so slowly becomes part of boxing's traditions. It's already much closer to being one than it was 20 years ago. Unfortunately, that will mean that you're now stuck for the next 20 years with the clunky 90s bodybuilding routines that have entered the tradition first, but...baby steps. It takes a while for boxing to fully digest things.
     
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  8. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    As an aside, the weeding out process and extreme conservatism mean that the *safest* advice to beginners about how to train is probably:

    1) Read the "How to Box" books by Dempsey, Louis, Patterson, and Frazier in chronological order.

    2) Find all the training methods that survived throughout the series.

    3) Do that.
     
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  9. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Ha, Ha, Modern Nutrition Testing (Steroids)
     
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  10. Saintpat

    Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    As the great philosopher Randall “Tex” Cobb put it: “You make a mistake in tennis it’s 15-love. You make a mistake in boxing and it’s your ass, darlin’.”
     
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  11. sasto

    sasto Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    I think it's always been about the way the business is structured. Who pays for year round testing for the long tail of pros who are making very little money and are scattered across the four corners of the globe?

    If you don't test every pro all the time, the idea of a clean sport is essentially a farce (maybe it is anyway), so you decide how much effort you want to put into the farce.

    This is a pessimistic interpretation, I do think there is a benefit, if you can at least say you can't be sticking needles in your ass in the dresssing room. You can head off the most egregious usage, at the cost of pushing athletes into more exotic and dangerous usage.
     
  12. Kamikaze

    Kamikaze Bye for now! banned Full Member

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    I have a thread on steroids (Read it, it has some good nuggets and is more factual then this writet up I rushed eating my dinner aha) and through my research concluded that the early 1960s were the beginning in pro sports like boxing. The Journeyman that fought Foreman by the name of Bob Hazelton (I think) began confirmed use in 1969.
    The Russians used Test before us Dr Ziegler (Inventor of DBOL) found this out in I think in the 40s-50s so he applied it to his athletes in a private environment after testing it on himself among those men was John Grimek whom was a retired Olympic lifter. I have no idea how much earlier the reds gave it to athletes but it was synthesised in 1935. He supplied the Olympic teams with Dbol the much more potent effective drugs and they still lost at the Roman Olympics aha,
     
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  13. Lenny

    Lenny Member Full Member

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    " when we see the clothes and music of the past we always laugh----- but we have no problem embracing everything present" Don't ask who said it.....I forget. Anyways. in contrast --- I think we are going into a era of " newer" science and sports. Not talking about what athletes were doing in the 70's-90'0s. Just to be simple---- I think most of us in our post 40's admire the training, the nutrition and the development of these athletes. I am 54. I could get a division I scholarship but that wouldnt happen today. Perhaps i am naive and the users are ahead of the testing. Everyone was using.....was what color were the pills in the baseball locker room? If you were not taking in late August you were cheating the team.

    I hope that we may have passed that era. Certainly testing has improved. The puffed up fighters of that era are no different than other leagues. Anyone remember the sudafed milkshake being passed around in every hockey locker room? I am an optimist and feel that in the future the continued science will take us away from that era...Better scrutiny of trainers { ok laughing} and a more regulated game would be great. These were for the most part 'dead end" kids. Has any sport thrown them to the curb like boxing? I would have taken the "juice" to make it... Sorry for the rant.
     
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  14. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Good post but in the end it is cheating, I would never do it. For one, I care about what I put in my body, never even tried Marijuana or illegal drugs, I said no to many that tried to encourage me to do it, even threw someone out of my car for lighting up, he had a long walk home. Parents back then were parents in 1976, our son has no interest in Marijuana or Drugs., just like his pop, he says no to others.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
  15. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Growing breast is manly, thanks to Modern Nutrition, Ha Ha. Playtex Cross Your Heart Bra time. Lol.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2021