Conor Benn (21-0, 14 KO’s) was recently discovered to have traces of a woman’s fertility drug in his system following a random test conducted by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (also known as VADA), according to Matchroom Boxing and Wasserman Boxing, the two promotions involved with the fight. Eddie Hearn, CEO of Matchroom and Benn’s promoter, has maintained the belief on his Twitter account, that Benn has not knowingly used any PEDs in the recently or previously. Benn’s match with Chris Eubank Jr. (32-2, 23 KO’s) is set to continue.
According to the joint-message by both promotions, Benn has not violated any rules as he has passed all the tests conducted by anti-doping agency UKAD, who oversee all drug tests of athletes from the UK. The statement also explained that the B-sample of Benn’s VADA test has yet to be tested.
Presumably this means that while Benn did fail a VADA test due to traces of a woman’s fertility drug being found in his system, the amounts found have not been deemed capable of affecting his performance, therefore allowing him to resume fighting Chris Eubank Jr. as he didn’t technically violate any rules. Since there has been no information presented on which exact substance has been found, there is also no way to determine whether the substance found in Benn is actually illegal or banned.
Conor Benn is scheduled to face Chris Eubank Jr. on Saturday October 8th at the O2 Arena in London. Both Benn and Eubank Jr. are the sons of Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank Sr. respectively who had been involved in a heated and prominent UK rivalry before their retirement from professional boxing. The match between their sons is therefore considered a continuation of that rivalry. The bout has drawn much interest from the public, even leading to tickets to the fight reportedly being sold out within an hour of being made available.
This recent news of Conor Benn isn’t the first time the continuation of the match has fallen in doubt. Chris Eubank Sr. has recently publicly revealed he didn’t want the fight to occur due to issues of weight-cutting, the lack of rehydration clauses and the risk of brain damage and has reportedly tried to pull his son out of the fight. It has even led to the point of Eubank Sr. calling for the bout to be boycotted.
Despite the Eubank Sr.’s protests and the recent revelation of Conor Benn’s VADA drug test, the match has persevered and is still set to commence on October 8th.
