By Keith Idec
Canelo Alvarez’s recent positive tests for Clenbuterol are far from Abel Sanchez’s only concerns leading up to Gennady Golovkin’s rematch against Alvarez.
Sanchez, Golovkin’s trainer, told Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole for a story posted Wednesday that the Nevada State Athletic Commission allowed Alvarez to illegally wrap his hands the night he fought Golovkin to a controversial draw September 16 in Las Vegas.
The veteran trainer from California detailed how he questioned what he viewed as the prohibited practice of “stacking” while watching Alvarez get his hands wrapped in his dressing room at T-Mobile Arena.
According to Sanchez, an unnamed inspector for the NSAC warned that he would be removed from Alvarez’s dressing room if he continued to argue about how Alvarez’s hands were wrapped.
“They put the gauze on his hand and he put one layer of gauze on the hand, and then they put the tape on top of the gauze,” Sanchez told Yahoo! Sports. “Immediately, I caught that and I said, ‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! That’s illegal. He can’t do that.’ And the inspector looked at me and said, ‘Yes, he can do that.’ It’s called stacking and it’s illegal, and you can’t do that. It’s creating a cast.
“We kept going back and forth, to the point where he threatened to throw me out of the room. But they put a layer of gauze on and then two or three layers of tape on top of that, and then gauze and tape again. That’s illegal.”
When reached by Yahoo! Sports, NSAC chairman Anthony Marnell said Alvarez’s preferred method of wrapping his hands is legal and has been allowed in Nevada “for decades.” Sanchez met with NSAC executive director Bob Bennett regarding his concerns about Alvarez’s hand wraps following their middleweight title fight, but their discussion didn’t lead to anything that satisfied Sanchez.
Assuming the NSAC’s investigation clears Alvarez now that he has tested positive for Clenbuterol, the Mexican superstar will challenge Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) for his IBF, IBO, WBA and WBC middleweight titles in a rematch May 5 at T-Mobile Arena (HBO Pay-Per-View). Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, which represents Alvarez, announced Monday that Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) twice tested positive in February for a trace amount of Clenbuterol, a banned anabolic substance that can come from contaminated meat.
2023-10-20 14:40:20
