Which Past Foes Wonder If Conor Benn Cheated Before Their Fights?

Say you had taken a fight with a guy, and yeah, he beat you, he was the better man on that night. And say that maybe a year later, the guy who beat you tested PED positive. Some of the above is pinging in the minds of people who took Ls at the hands of Conor Benn, the 26-0 Brit welterweight whose Saturday career definer bout against Chris Eubank got cancelled when “The Destroyer” peed nuclear.

Chris Van Heerden, Chris Algieri and Adrian Granados are the last three pugilists who battled Benn. All three vets jetted to the UK, and went to England as “B sides,” on paper, versus the ascending Conor Benn.

Can't blame Algieri a stitch for voicing aloud his thoughts on the Benn positive. Mark Robinson photo for Matchroom

The chip off the Brit legend block defeated Granados via decision, and stopped Algieri and Van Heerden in impressive fashion. Too impressive fashion? Because he’d gained an extra edge in training by using chemicals to boost his strength?

It’s crossed the mind of the 28-3-1 Van Heerden, of South Africa. Here’s the topic broached by Van Heerden on Twitter:

It’s a topic of conversation for the 38 year old American Algieri, the Long Island, New Yorker holding a 25-4 mark. He and podcast partner Dan Canobbio dove into the matter of the Conor Benn positive forcing the cancellation of the Oct. 8 catchweight match against Eubank. Algieri shared a bit on Twitter, as well:

The 33 year old Chicagoan Adrian Granados (21-9-3) last gloved up on Sept. 24, 2021, losing a UD on the middle of the card. He didn’t pretend to be anything other than pissed off at the news of the Conor Benn PED development. Check out his Twitter take:

My Three Cents: A certain percentage of athletes will use and are using banned meds to give themselves a verboten performance boost. And a certain percentage aren't…It's always interesting to look around, and listen, and hear what fighters pipe up, and which ones don't when a high profile pug pops positive. Most, for the record, don't. And is that because they stay in their lane and don't want to speak on a dicey issue that doesn't directly involve them? Or is it because they know their own training methods feature the ingestion of testosterone boosters, or super stamina enhancers, and a concerted effort to avoid detection? We will leave that as a rhetorical question…