By Barry Holbrook: WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman says British welterweight contender Conor Benn is free to fight and is NOT suspended while they investigate his positive tests for the banned drug clomifene.
Sulaiman says it’s taking time for the WBC to sift through the 270-page document Benn’s team sent to them to try and clear his name.
Whether Benn can clear his name is questionable, as even if the WBC determines that his positive tests were a result of contamination or whatever Conor’s excuse is in his 270-page document, many in the boxing public will continue to see him as a drug cheat.
If you’re Benn (21-0, 14 KOs), he might as well continue fighting because the investigation could take a considerable amount of time. The longer it goes, the more difficult it’ll be for Benn to come back from this to be the fighter he was before this issue occurred.
Benn last fought nine months ago in April when he stopped journeyman Chris Van Heerden in the second round.
Assuming the investigation creeps into mid-2023, Benn will have been out of action for over a year, and if he then receives a drug ban of a year, that would make it almost impossible for him to regain the form that he had.
Even before this issue, there were many doubts about whether Benn could cut the mustard at the top of the welterweight division against quality fighters like Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, Eimantas Stanionis, Errol Spence Jr, Terence Crawford, and Vergil Ortiz Jr.
The fighters that Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn had been feeding Conor Benn were old washed-up guys like Chris Algieri, Van Heerden, Samuel Vargas, and Adrian Granados.
Benn was fighting guys that would be obliterated even by fringe contenders at welterweight, which could mean that Conor’s career was nothing but smoke & mirrors.
In other words, another example of a crafty promoter matching a flawed fighter against mediocre opposition to make him look like pure gold, but in reality, he was a carefully manufactured guy with nowhere near the talent to compete with A-level or elite welterweights. Some would argue that Conor Benn fits the celebrity boxer category rather than the real thing.
“We received a document from his team which [was] 270 pages,” said Mauricio Sulaiman to Thaboxingvoice about the huge book-like documents that Conor Benn’s side has sent them in hopes of proving his innocence.
“He can fight; he’s free to fight,’ said Sulaiman about Benn. “He’s not in any way suspended. The WBC has the obligation to do the whole process.
“Within that document, there are many matters that need further investigation and action. This is nothing that can be simply resolved by sympathy or by saying X, Y, or Z. You have to go into the facts because there are legal implications as well. We have to take all the time necessary.
“We received that document, we sent back a letter to the lawyers, and it took three weeks for them to respond. So it is not that we have stalled the case. We are actively working on it, and we are just following the protocol,” said Sulaiman
