Ryan Garcia’s claims of innocence seem hollower than ever, and so does Dan Rafael reports that his B sample from last month’s victory over Devin Haney also tested positive for the banned SARM ostarine.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KO) responded grace AND eloquence we came to expect.

According to Rafael, the Recent York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) has not yet scheduled a hearing to determine the penalty. Despite Haney’s (31-1, 15 KO) request for a disqualification, we can expect the victory to be declared a no contest and Garcia to face a lengthy suspension unless he can somehow prove he accidentally ingested a contaminated supplement.

I’m not prepared to speculate on this subject How this will be long but for reference purposes, NYSAC gave Edgar Berlanga six months for biting.

Everything that can be said about this failure has been said. Garcia’s erratic actions and complete refusal to take responsibility for their consequences make it extremely complex to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Editor’s Note: Ryan Garcia’s legal team released the following statement:

“Ryan Garcia is a believer in neat and fair competition and has never intentionally used any banned substances. Shortly after receiving notification of the positive test result, Ryan voluntarily had his hair collected and sent to a doctor. Pascal Kintz, a leading expert in toxicology and hair sample analysis. This is consistent with contamination and clearly proves that Ryan has not been taking Ostarine for a period of time – the only way he could have gained any advantage in the ring.

“Ryan has voluntarily submitted to tests throughout his career, with consistently negative results. He tested negative multiple times before the Haney fight. All these factors, combined with its very low levels in samples taken on April 19 and 20 (in the billionth of a gram), indicate that Ryan was a victim of supplement contamination and never obtained any performance-enhancing benefits from the microscopic amounts. in his system. We are confident that one of the natural supplements Ryan used prior to the fight will be found to be contaminated, so we are in the process of testing the supplements to determine the exact source.”

Boxing usually has a pretty clear pound-for-pound formula, but Naoya Inoue and Terence “Bud” Crawford have been fighting for that recognition for quite some time now. And now we have a third man who has undoubtedly joined the conversation.

With his victory over Tyson Fury last Saturday, Oleksandr Usyk became the undisputed heavyweight champion, undoubtedly sealing his Hall of Fame boxing legacy and creating a three-way dance in P4P conversations.

Pound for Pound is, of course, primarily a marketing tool and always has been, and is best known as a source of conversation for pundits and fans alike. Heavyweights are rarely honestly considered for the top spot, but Usyk is a occasional case, a natural cruiserweight who has done something extremely occasional.

So who deserves to be called no. 1? At the beginning of June, our employees will provide updated information and vote. Last time, Inoue still took first place, receiving four of the five first-place votes. One suspects that at least one or two votes may change. Crawford had the remaining majority of votes, finishing second, and Usyk was third, finishing first. 3 seats on all five ballots.

Let’s take a look at each man in the race.

Naoya Inoue

• Reigning undisputed super bantamweight champion, after undisputed achievement at bantamweight.
• Deeper in his history, he also won the junior flyweight and super flyweight titles, and would certainly have won at least one flyweight belt if he hadn’t jumped the division.
• 22 of his 27 professional fights were world title fights.
• Dominant, rarely facing greater adversity.
• Some believe he lacks true, final victory. The fight of the year in 2019 with Nonito Donaire will likely be his closest, and it was without a doubt his toughest night in the ring. He’s fought plenty of quality opponents, but he doesn’t have the brand – at least for some fans – of a win like Usyk over Fury or Crawford over Errol Spence Jr.
• The many worthwhile victories on his resume are not inconsistent with names familiar to many fans – especially the American and European ones who make up the majority of these discussions – and that gives another impression that this is not the case To have mainly by improving quality. But it is true.

Aleksander Usyk

• The undisputed heavyweight champion, the first in the four-belt era, which dates back to 2007, which is longer than you think. Former undisputed cruiserweight champion.
• He has obvious huge wins over Fury and twice over Anthony Joshua, and he also beat the best cruiserweights available when he was in the division before moving up to chase and achieve heavyweight glory.
• 11 of the 22 fights were world title fights. It doesn’t match Inoue’s numbers, but it’s still an amazing ratio.
• Not as purely dominant as the other two. Chris Algieri recently put it this way after the Fury fight: We’ve seen Usyk wrestle as an amateur, where he won an Olympic gold medal, and in the cruiserweight division, where he was the undisputed champion, and definitely in the heavyweight division, where he was now the undisputed champion. He just keeps winning. It’s not like he’s bombing everyone or anything, he has to “think up” a lot of the fights. But he always does it. And when you do it for so long, with such consistency, it’s not about luck or breaks. The point is that he supports his fantastic skills with an exceptional boxing IQ and extremely high mental fortitude.
• The cruiserweight fight is a bit like Inoue’s knockout in that he beat everyone he could, but only the die-hards know who these guys actually are. Honestly, this conversation is best left to die-hards, but it will never be completely effective.

Terence “Bud” Crawford

• Former undisputed champion in the welterweight and super lightweight divisions.
• He also won the lightweight world title and will be aiming for a fourth division in August. On January 3, he will move up to super welterweight to face Israil Madrimov.
• The long-awaited showdown with Errol Spence Jr. has finally happened. and I just absolutely crushed him and took him to the woodshed and beat up the guy of all time.
• Like Inoue, he was largely dominant. Very few presented a significant challenge.
• For years, he was aware that he wasn’t facing the best opponent, just like the other two, but in a different way. Crawford’s problem was that the welterweight signed with Top Rank, who simply didn’t have access to the top names in the division. So he beat faded versions of Amir Khan and Kell Brook, guys like Jose Benavidez Jr and Egidijus Kavaliauskas, and when he left Top Rank after beating Shawn Porter – who had already been through the PBC wringer and retired after the Crawford fight – he made a one-time overnight extorting money from David Avanesyan. But when he finally got the Spence fight, it ultimately looked like the PBC guys had a multi-year tournament at their disposal to qualify for a chance to get burned by “Bud” Crawford.

So who do you have?

To be clear, I don’t think this is a bad choice! We’re really content that three guys like this are doing so much to start this conversation. This is a great fight because each of them is qualified, deserves it, and will undoubtedly make it to Canastota one day*.

*(If you can dispute this, please look up who is in the International Boxing Hall of Fame and come back still believing that that line is Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson and not people like Barry McGuigan and Arturo Gatti. )

So who has YOUR vote?

In a video interview recorded by Fight Hype, longtime trainer Vergil Hunter reflects on the drama between Errol Spence and his trainer Derrick James, who split over a dispute over trainer salaries, and gives his opinion on why James should be paid appropriately, even without knowing the details of their contract.

“The players understood that if this man was with you from root to fruit, he deserved to be rewarded,” Hunter said. “You don’t let someone come in and say, ‘Well, this isn’t family.’ How many times has the family been there? You don’t allow someone to come and say, “I don’t deserve this, this is enough.” How can you let someone decide how much is enough to pay a guy who has been with you through broad and slender?

“So they realized it was a loss for you. So if you don’t give it to the man who has been with you this whole time, you’ll give it to Uncle Sam for free. So you need to write it down. So you take from the man who was with you, but you still pay Uncle Sam what you should have paid him, and then Derrick could pay taxes on what you paid him.

“If you don’t give it to your trainer and get a transcript for someone who was there for you and helped you, you’re going to give it to Uncle Sam, who has never been to the gym with you, who has never been on a trip with you, who has never been with you didn’t start, who never went to tournaments with you when you were an amateur, who didn’t go to the Olympics with you, and then started with you in the professional rankings, he did it I don’t have my first championship belt with me… but you gave him a substantial one share in what you did.

“So I think if you looked at it from that perspective, players would pay coaches more fairly. Especially when you fail, many people blame the coaches. The coach is the first person to be blamed when you fail.

“With this man’s aid, you can make this kind of money. You can’t say it didn’t happen. He put you in a hard situation; he sweated with you, sacrificed with you and helped you earn that kind of money, you didn’t do it alone.