Why doesn't Lennox have universal approval ?

I think as far as synthetic testosterone and anabolic steroids are concerned, we can safely say the boxers of the 1930s and before did not use them.
In the 1940s testosterone came on to the markets and was being marketed as an anti-aging libido-enhancing drug. It's benefits to muscle mass and strength were less known and in dispute for some time after.

I think by the 1960s definitely, with bodybuilders certainly already on the testosterone and with new forms of testosterone/anabolic steroids on the scene, and being used by football teams and weighlifters and increasingly by track and field athletes ... we can definitely surmise that some people in the fight game or doctors connected with the fight game would have used them.

What people don't realize is that back in the 1960s and '70s a lot of athletes would have been taking drugs on doctor's orders and without knowing or caring the specific category of drug it is ... just like most people when they went to the doctor.
It wasn't an issue. No one thought of it as "cheating".

If a fighter in camp had an injury or a complaint or a soreness, or didn't feel as good or as strong as before, and a doctor had an injection or two that might help, in those days you just take the shot and get on with the training.
It wasn't like nowadays, with all this hysteria about drugs and testing, and scandal, and all that ****.

So, even a lot of the old-timers who say "we didn't have steroids" are not even trustworthy witnesses, since at the time no one cared or knew what a steroid was.

 

You're right. You're not an expert.

Believe what you like, some people believe in god and all kinds of weird sh it. It doesn't make it true, it simply means people believe what they want to believe.

 

I think that a lot of modern fighters do use PEDs, but in the absence of any evidence, you have to give individuals the benefit of the doubt.

 

:rofl

Yeah, and you go on believing PEDs don't exist or whatever it is you believe .

 

To some extent you do, yes, but with some individuals it's just too bl00dy obvious.

 

Acting like his win over a shot to **** Tyson was a win for the ages doesn't help his cause.

 

You mean like Sam Langford?

 

No.

 

I was thinking more like Shannon Briggs, Vinny Pazienza.

 

Oh no, I'm not saying he can fight.

I very rarely see a boxer whose physique (whether "huge" or "ripped" or both) is proof enough of anabolic usage ... I think people who make claims like that all the time are a bit ignorant of human variation and genetics, or what's possibly from training ..... but Shannon Briggs is at that freakish level that says to me certain 'roid or HGH use.

 

Yeah, in principle I'm all for extending the benefit of the doubt to everyone who hasn't be caught or confessed, but our modern athlete freak shows are really f***ing good at narrowing down that doubt !
I'm inclined to think it's just part of life.