WHAT
A DOPE Tyson refused one drug test before Golota fight..then
tested positive for marijuana AFTER TROUBLED Mike Tyson was banned from
boxing after testing positive for marijuana use, it was revealed last night. The
news shatters claims his latest bout of controversy happened simply because he
failed to provide a urine sample before his fight against Andrew Golota last October.
It raises fresh doubts over a big-money meeting with Britain's world heavyweight
champion Lennox Lewis because Tyson's latest offence means he could find it hard
to get back his licence to fight in the boxing capital of Las Vegas. And it may
even mean Tyson's recent warning that he will never fight again becomes reality.
Former world heavyweight champion Tyson was banned for three months and
fined pounds 3,500 over irregularities in the drug testing procedure before his
meeting with Golota in Detroit. Officials of the state boxing commission in Michigan
handed out the punishment with Tyson's agreement, announcing they were acting
because of the failure to provide a sample before the fight. But a report
which has emerged in the nearby city of Grand Rapids revealed that, in fact, traces
of marijuana were discovered in the test Tyson took after the fight, which ended
farcically after two rounds when Golota quit on his stool. Commission chairman
David Sebastian confirmed that when he said: "I am always surprised when any boxer
tests positive for any recreational drug. They all know they're going to be tested."
Tyson had no plans to fight within the next three months, although he has returned
to training in the gym despite a claim, before the fight against Golota, that
he was quitting the ring. However, the boxing licence issued to him by the Nevada
State Athletics Commission, who run boxing in Las Vegas, has now expired and the
drug offence in Michigan may mean his next application is refused. Commission
legal boss Kirk Hendrick said: "Because Mike Tyson is not currently licensed in
Nevada, the burden is on him to prove he is suitable to hold one." Tyson has already
been banned for 15 months by the Nevada
Commission after he bit Evander Holyfield's ears in 1997. |