Caleb Plant unloaded on Oscar Valdez on Thursday in reacting to him being cleared to fight on September 10th by the Pascua Yaqui Trible Athletic Commission after failing two tests for the banned substance phentermine.
IBF super middleweight champion Plant (21-0, 12 KOs) not only gave Valdez a piece of his mind, but he let his gym-mate Canelo Alvarez have a taste of his scorn as well.
Just so you know, Valdez and Canelo are both trained by Eddy Reynoso and fight out of the same gym in San Diego, California.
Valdez (30-0, 23 KOs) no longer has to worry about his fight with Robson Conceicao (16-0, 8 KOs) being canceled because of him testing positive for two VADA-administered tests.
However, there’s a possibility the WBC will still strip Valdez of his World Boxing Council super featherweight title. They’ll be making a determination soon on Valdez’s case.
Obviously, Valdez, 30, won’t be happy if his fight with Conceicao, 32, has no title on the line, as he wanted to keep that belt.
ESPN says that the Pascua Yaqui Trible Athletic Commission chose to follow the WADA guidelines rather than VADA.
WADA allows the use of CNS substances like phentermine up to a day before a fight, whereas VADA rules it out entirely during training for a competition.
As such, the justification for the Commission was based on them following WADA, so it isn’t an issue that Valdez tested positive for phentermine.
Where there’s a problem is that Valdez signed up for VADA testing for this fight with Conceicao. So if Valdez knowingly signed up for the testing, he should be following their guidelines rather than WADA.
Valdez had previously tested positive for the banned substance phentermine for his A-sample tested last month. On Thursday, Valdez’s B-sample was tested, and that too came up positive.
Nevertheless, with the Commission not following VADA guidelines, it doesn’t matter that Valdez was positive for phentermine. Basically, if they’re allowing the substance up until a day before the fight, then Conceicao would be free to load up on it to help him lose weight to get down to 130.
We’re going to see what happens with Valdez in the future when or if his promoters push to continue to have his fights staged in Tucson, Arizona at the Casino del Sol so that if he chooses to, he can use phentermine without worry.
It’s predictable that Valdez’s opponents will want to stage the fights in an area where he’ll be tested for CSN substances like phentermine.