First it was George Foreman claiming that he was drugged when he faced Muhammad Ali. Now it is Antonio Tarver who is speculating that perhaps he was drugged when he faced Bernard Hopkins last June. It seems very convenient and easy to blame a loss on being drugged up.
True, these two fighters were clearly not at 100% when they fought these bouts. They seemed to be moving a bit slower, but perhaps that’s from a lack of preparation, or maybe even over working themselves before the fight. I’m not saying that they couldn’t be drugged, but it just seems like a conveneint time to come up with this excuse, for the both of them. Foreman is coming out with a new book, and while he says the story was told in Sports Illustrated back in the day, it doesn’t hurt to get some publicity when a new book is being released. As for Tarver, he is scheduled to fight a week from tomorrow and it can’t hurt to get even more publicity for that fight.
These two guys are great fighters, and I want to believe what they say. But at the same time, they, and their managers, should be very careful about what comes around them before the fight. They need to know exactly what is entering their bodies, it really isn’t that hard to find a sealed bottle of water. Maybe backstabbing is too commonplace in boxing, but there has to be a way to avoid this.
