More trouble for the troubled former light heavyweight champion.
We’re running out of ways for Sergey Kovalev to misbehave.
Just over two weeks out from his DAZN main event versus highly touted prospect Bektemir Melikuziev (6-0, 5 KOs), the former light heavyweight champion has tested positive for synthetic testosterone in a random VADA drug test. This fight is probably doomed but nothing has been officially announced yet.
Boxing Scene’s Dan Rafael has the details:
“Adverse analytical finding: IRMS (isotope-ratio mass spectrometry) results are consistent with exogenous origin of testosterone and metabolites,” according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by BoxingScene.com.
[…]
We are aware of the adverse finding from VADA,” Main Events CEO Kathy Duva, Kovalev’s longtime promoter, told BoxingScene. “Sergey Kovalev has been proven to be a clean fighter throughout the many years that he has been tested by VADA. VADA was contracted for this fight at his insistence, as he has requested for almost all of his fights going back several years. He maintains that he did not purposefully ingest any banned substances. We have made arrangements to have his supplements tested for contamination and will request that VADA test his B sample.”
Well it’s hard to imagine a false positive for synthetic testosterone. The early read on this is that he’s screwed. This fight was moved from Russia to California (where both men train) and there’s no way the commission would sign off on this given what Kovalev tested positive for.
So if you’re keeping score, Kovalev has assaulted a woman and her dog, sexually harassed another woman in a plane, got busted for drunk driving, and he illegally streamed Canelo Alvarez vs. Callum Smith on the very network he was supposed to be fighting on.
There’s surely no reason to take his career seriously anymore.