Conor Benn 21-0 (14) failed two drug tests prior to cancelled bout against Chris Eubank Jr 32-2 (23).
The 26-year-old welterweight was scheduled to face middleweight Eubank, 33, in a catchweight bout at 157-pounds on October 8 but the fight was cancelled at the eleventh hour after trace amounts of the fertility drug clomifene was found in his system from a VADA test September 1.
It can now been revealed that Benn also tested positive for the same substance in an earlier VADA test on July 25.
“I was informed (of the first fail in July) and I thought: ‘It’s probably a faulty test’,” Benn told The Sun. “I thought, ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it’. We’re still trying to do that. We’re making progress. But the way it’s been blown up has affected me so much. My innocence will be proven, it has to be.
“I passed all my UKAD tests, which people aren’t talking about. I’ve passed all my tests in and out of camp. I’ve been a professional for seven years and never failed a test.
“I signed up to VADA in February, so it doesn’t make any sense. Why would I take something then? Trace amounts were found. The tiniest of traces. The only thing I can think of is contamination.
“I’ve not taken anything. I never have done, never would. It’s not what I stand for, it’s not what my team stands for. Why would I take the biggest fight of my life, sign up to VADA – voluntary anti-doping – and then take this substance? If you Google this substance, it stays in your system for months. Do I look like an idiot?”
Clomifene (particularly the purified enclomiphene isomer) has also been found to have a powerful ability to boost or restore testosterone levels in hypogonadal men.
Benn has plead his innocence despite relinquishing his British boxing licence as a hearing on October 21. The British Boxing Board of Control upheld its claims of “allegations of misconduct”.
“I won’t fight until this is resolved, with a foreign licence or not. Whether people believe it or not is not down to me. But there comes a stage where you harden,” Benn said.
“I don’t want to get to there but I also don’t want to keep getting hurt by this. It’s horrible dealing with this at 26 after working so hard every day. I wonder if I can ever fight again right now. But I cannot let them win.
“It baffles me that people think I have cheated after seeing me on TV for so long, what I am like with my team, family and dad. Am I a serial liar?”
Benn, who goes by the nickname ‘The Destroyer’, was last in action in April when he stopped Chris van Heerden in two frames.
