Who was the earliest world champion you are convinced used PEDs?

My case for Mackie & Mike:

1) Mackie was willing to use them on his athletes when they were illegal and tested for; why wouldn't he use them when they were legal?

2)Conversely, if his methods that hit a home run for Spinks didn't involve steroids, why would he bother going the illicit route in the first place once sports started testing and cracking down? There'd have been no need to.

3) Spinks put on 25 pounds of muscle in three months while lowering his body fat %

4) while still conditioning for a 15 round fight

Circimstancial evidence I know, but enough of it that I feel comfortable in my stance. I've been around business and sports enough to know that Mackies actions wouldnt add up, nor does Mike's lightning quick transformation in such a cardio intensive sport.

 

I believe they became popular in the 80's Pazienza was a poster boy for roids, Holyfield , then later on Mosely anad Pacman. There were probably many others. Look at Wladimer's physique when he was 27 compared to 35.

 

A failed test means nothing. Lance Armstrong never failed a test. One of my old training partners was an Olympic athlete from a soviet block country whose team forced them all to be on steroids (he was very religious and objected but ultimately went through with it) he told me how the testing worked out how they got around it and his comment was “anyone who gets caught is either stupid or trying to get caught” now things have certainly gotten more sophisticated in regards to testing protocols but even the experts will tell you that regulators are always playing catchup to the cheaters.

 

klompton2: Depends on what you consider PEDs. That goal post has moved back and forth over the years. Fighters used cocaine injections for broken hands as early as the 1910s. Dempsey's ex wife accused him of using cocaine as a stimulant before fights which she said accounted for his early blitzing rushes. There are other examples Im sure.

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Seems like Maxine accused Dempsey of everything under the sun.
I'm saying Paz Tyson and Holy were the ones that started first.

 

Shane Mosley never failed a test either. We only know he took PEDs because he admitted it under oath.

 

Bob Hazelton, who fought Foreman, was a renowned and admitted juicehead. It cost him his life. I can't imagine he was alone back in the 60's and 70's.

 

When Ancient Greek Boxers ate Bull testes to gain powers of virility!

I do suspect (no proof, just a theory) Mexican fighters such as Saldivar etc of possibly using PEDS in the forms of asthma medication etc. These guys had dedicated personal doctors since the early 60s. Erbito Salavarria was actually caught in his bout with Betulio Gonzalez, in 1971, with amphetamines.

http://theboxingtribune.com/2012/06/25/boxings-first-peds-bust/

 

It was in all likelihood rife in the 1968 Olympics and boxers, who later tuned pro, of course participated in that Olympics as well.

As I think I wrote in an earlier post, the whole American weight lifting team got heavily into steroids already in the 1960 Olympics. So heavily that several disregarded the recommended maximum and got permanent liver damage. By that time they weren't yet illegal and testing for steroids didn't start until 1976.

So that's three Olympics when steroids were around and you didn't get penalised for using them.

It doesn't seem realistic to me that boxing would take another 15-20 years for it to become a big thing.

From results it seems it really had spread by 1968. There were apparently a lot of records spectacularly broken that year, not only Jesse Owen's 32 year old record in long jump that was absolutely shattered by Bob Beamon.

 

I have a friend who used to be a pro cyclist in South Africa. She trained with Chris Froome, so she was pretty good, but she would win the odd race, and lose more than she won. One day her coach said "you are going to have to take some stuff if you want to progress." Instead she quit the sport in disgust!

 

When I was doing top level track in the late 80's, it was already rife with the stuff, right down to the junior level. In any sport that actually paid money, I would imagine the stuff was around decades earlier.

 

Maybe boxers were later adapters in general because steroids were associated with weight training which boxing traditionally has frowned upon, but at some point boxers also had to see athletes running faster, swimming faster, throwing longer and jumping longer and higher with the help of steroids and think "that might be pretty helpful after all", and in a sport with so much money and fame involved athletes are always going to try to find an edge. And when it first has started you don't want to be only one not doing it, since you're going to be at a disadvantage then.

 

He denied ever using Ped's & claimed he'd passed polygraph tests to prove his innocence BUT then BALCO produced the receipts & he was up CHITT creek without a paddle. The look on his face was hilarious

 

Someone vs Betulio Gonzalez comes to mind, can't think of a name though. Sorry.

 

I remember Victor Conte's incredulous reaction when Mosley said he thought the stuff he was taking were vitamins: "you think vitamins cost $5000?!"