WBC stands behind Canelo Alvarez despite positive drug test

WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman has come to bat for Canelo Alvarez following his positive test for banned substance Clenbuterol.

“I give the benefit of the doubt to Canelo. He has never previously tested positive for anything and he’s been in the Clean Boxing Program for many years.

”He has our absolute vote of confidence.”

Canelo and his team stand by their position that he only tested positive for the banned substance due to him ingesting tainted meat in Mexico. Whether or not that is really the case is a matter for debate and investigation, and perhaps we’ll never really know for sure. But what I am sure of is that there’s way too much money in play for this fight for it to be nixed over this particular issue.

Bet your bottom dollar that this fight will be going off of May 5th — so long as there are no more positive tests.

And as for Canelo and the WBC goes, well, they have something of a complicated relationship. Canelo had long been a favorite of the sanctioning body, but the two developed a sort of contentious relationship when the WBC tried to force Canelo into facing Golovkin before he was ready.

Canelo would end up vacating his WBC middleweight title, refused to accept a custom-made belt soon thereafter, and again refused to fight for their world title during the first match-up with Golovkin last year— all which prompted Sulaiman to call Canelo a bitter man.

But even despite whatever rift lingers between the two sides, it makes financial sense for the WBC to try get back into Canelo’s good graces. He’s a huge draw and they stand to gain a nice chunk of change for him opting to pay sanctioning fees to fight for their title. Whether or not he’ll choose to still remains to be seen.