The trainer of Artur Beterbiev has scoffed at what he feels are hypocritical comments from promoter Eddie Hearn.
A minor controversy arose earlier this week when it was revealed that Beterbiev, the unified light heavyweight champion, had elevated levels of HGH and testosterone in his blood and urine from tests administered by Voluntary-Anti-Doping Association in mid-December.
The findings were described as “atypical,” not adverse, as Hearn was careful to point out in interviews with reporters in Quebec City, Canada, where Beterbiev will defend his IBF, WBC, and WBO titles against Hearn’s client, Callum Smith, this Saturday at Centre Videotron. Hearn and Smith’s team were notified about Beterbiev’s results a month ago but Hearn nevertheless made it clear he still has doubts about the results and has called for more transparency. Hearn said he is not pleased by VADA’s differentiation between an adverse finding and an atypical one.
“Again, I comment, it’s not an adverse finding,” Hearn said. “But when there’s raised levels of those substances, we cannot help but investigate further. We wouldn’t be doing our job. And Callum’s lawyer has been doing that with VADA. You know, again, we’d like a little bit more information.”
The comments have not endeared Hearn to Beterbiev and his team. Marc Ramsay, the chief trainer of the Russian native, called out Hearn for being a hypocrite, given the latter’s history.
Hearn’s company, Matchroom, has been connected to several highly-publicized PED scandals in recent years, the most notable being in October 2022, when Conor Benn tested positive for clomifene which led to the abrupt cancellation of his fight with Chris Eubank Jr. at O2 Arena in London.
And last summer, Hearn had to swap out Dillian Whyte for Robert Helenius on less than one week’s notice because there were adverse findings in Whyte’s PED tests that prevented him from taking on Anthony Joshua. Joshua would go on to knock out Helenius in seven rounds.
But what drew the ire of Ramsay the most was Whyte’s doping violation that took place ahead of his fight with one of Ramsay’s fighters, Oscar Rivas, in July 2019 in London. In the week leading up to the fight, United Kingdom Anti-Doping revealed that the A sample for Whyte’s drug test returned a positive result for the banned steroid dianabol. However, the British Boxing Board of Control allowed the fight to proceed without notifying Rivas’ team. UKAD revoked Whyte’s drug violation in a ruling five months later. It is not clear if a B sample was tested.
“If the test appeared positive, the show would have been canceled,” Ramsay told Le Journal de Montreal. “There was an anomaly. We had three tests that followed and all three were returned negative.
“He’s trying to play with our head at the moment. What’s rich is that this is coming from Eddie Hearn, the same guy who let my boxer Oscar Rivas into the ring with a drug cheat, Dillian Whyte. I was waiting forever for the results of the B-sample, and I never got them.”
Of Smith, Ramsay was more charitable, saying the former 168-pound titlist from Liverpool is a legitimate threat to the undefeated Beterbiev.
“He’s got some pop in his punch, you have to be honest about that,” Ramsay said of Smith. “Maybe he’s not the best puncher that we’ve faced, but he’s one of the best. He’s fast, he counterpunches hard and he has a good left hook.”
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.