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The Nevada State Athletic Commission has lifted Jarrell Miller’s lengthy suspension for failing yet another pre-fight test for performance-enhancing drugs.
Dmitriy Salita, Miller’s co-promoter, informed BoxingScene.com on Tuesday that the NSAC has licensed Miller, which will allow him to fight in Las Vegas and elsewhere in the United States. The 34-year-old heavyweight contender has boxed twice this year, in Argentina and Tennessee, but most commissions affiliated with the Association of Boxing Commissions in the United States have recognized Nevada’s suspension of Miller.
The unbeaten Brooklyn native has been suspended since July 2020, a few weeks after Miller tested positive for an unspecified substance in an exam administered by the NSAC in advance of his fight against Jerry Forrest. The Miller-Forrest fight was scheduled for July 9, 2020, at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.
Now that his license issue is resolved, Miller’s next fight likely will be held somewhere in the U.S.
“I’m very happy that this has happened for Jarrell,” Salita told BoxingScene.com. “It opens the door for Jarrell to big fights. A fight with Anthony Joshua would be big. Him versus Deontay Wilder and him versus Tyson Fury are also big fights we’re interested in. Jarrell is one of the biggest personalities in the heavyweight division in the United States and he is very hungry to climb his way back up the heavyweight ranks.”
The besmirched Miller (25-0-1, 21 KOs) ended a 3½-year layoff June 23, when he stopped Ariel Bracamonte (11-10, 6 KOs) by unanimous decision in a 10-rounder in Buenos Aires. A month later, Miller stopped Derek Cardenas (8-10, 7 KOs) in the fourth round of a July 23 bout in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Before he beat Bracamonte, Miller hadn’t boxed since he knocked out Bogdan Dinu (then 18-0) in the fourth round of a November 2018 fight in Mulvane, Kansas.
Miller was supposed to challenge Joshua, a then-unbeaten heavyweight champion, for his IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO belts in June 2019 at Madison Square Garden in New York. He was removed from the Joshua fight late in April 2019 because Miller tested positive for four substances banned by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association, which handled testing for the Joshua-Miller match.
Miller (23-0-1, 20 KOs) failed for GW501516, also known as cardarine and endurobol, in March 2019. He also tested positive for human growth hormone and erythropoietin, more commonly called EPO, in separate samples taken in March 2019.
Miller admitted on social media in the immediate aftermath of failing those tests that he “messed up.” He was not yet licensed in New York when he failed those tests, though, and therefore wasn’t suspended by the New York State Athletic Commission.
The 6-foot-4, 315-pound Miller’s compensation package for the Joshua fight would’ve exceeded $5 million.
Andy Ruiz Jr. replaced Miller on approximately five weeks’ notice and pulled off one of the most noteworthy upsets in heavyweight history. Ruiz floored England’s Joshua four times and stopped him in the seventh round, but Joshua regained his belts when he won their immediate rematch by 12-round unanimous decision in December 2020 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.
Miller, who was a kickboxer before he focused solely on his boxing career, previously was suspended for nine months by the California State Athletic Commission because he tested positive for methylhexanamine after losing a three-round kickboxing bout to Mirko Cro Cop in June 2014 at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.