THE controversy surrounding Dillian Whyte’s failed Ukad (UK Anti-Doping) drug test a few days prior to his clash with Oscar Rivas just got more intriguing with the revelation that he passed all of his Vada (Voluntary Anti-Doping Association) tests both in the run-up to and after the same fight. 

This revelation will no doubt form the basis of Whyte’s defence against the Ukad test result as he fights now not for a world title but to save his career.

What we know is that the Ukad test was conducted at random — ie without Whyte or his team being given advance notice.

It was carried out according to the usual protocol, involving two separate blood samples — “A” and “B” — being taken.

The A sample was tested and reportedly found to contain a banned substance, leading to the B sample also being tested in order to substantiate and confirm the initial result. 

The delay between the testing of Whyte’s A and B samples allowed the fight to take place (indeed at time of writing the result of his B sample has yet to be revealed), after Ukad conducted a private hearing on the morning of the night of the fight with Whyte and his representatives (Eddie Hearn not included), at which the Brixton heavyweight was cleared to enter the ring against Rivas with the blessing of the British Boxing Board of Control.

The fact that neither Rivas nor his team were informed of Whyte’s failed test is quite astonishing, and would appear to impugn the reputations of Hearn, Ukad and the Board.

It also would appear to render the legitimacy of the result of the fight, which Whyte won by unanimous decision, questionable.

Whyte issued a terse statement via Twitter a few days after the controversy erupted, bemoaning the “rubbish that has been said about me” and stating that he can’t say too much about the issue at present because he has “lawyers dealing with it.”

But with the Vada tests showing negative results, at least according to reports, the sense that this is now a soap opera is impossible to refute.

The central question it poses is over how two different anti-doping organisations could come up with two different results after testing the same fighter for banned substances around the same period?

Vada, it should be explained, is a US-based anti-doping agency whose work the WBC, which sanctioned the Whyte v Rivas fight, relies on as the gold standard of anti-doping testing.

Regardless of the outcome to this particular controversy, boxing has a real crisis on its hands with more and more incidences of fighters testing positive for banned substances.

The mosaic of boxing commissions, sanctioning bodies and national boards is in desperate need of one international governing body with a constitution and rulebook to which every professional fighter and fight promoter must sign up and adhere to. 

There must also be rolled out, as a matter of urgency, a transparent and rigid system of random drug testing on an international basis, organised by the aforesaid international body, using the most sophisticated testing methods available, with the aim of cleaning up the sport.

Currently the promoters and TV and broadcast networks are calling the shots; able to do so because of the huge amount of money being generated by pay-per-view sales, especially in the US.  

It’s a state of affairs that has to end if the sport is not to eat itself alive with avarice and destroy what credibility it has left.

Making the Whyte saga even more egregious is the fact that it arrived on the heels of Jarrell Miller’s failed tests in advance of his scheduled fight against Anthony Joshua at the beginning of June, earning him a tepid six-month ban and opening the door for Andy Ruiz Jnr to take his place at short notice and pull off a spectacular upset.

Moreover, tragedy only recently hit the sport with the deaths of Maxim Dadashev of Russia and Argentina’s Hugo Santillan occurring almost back to back, shining an even harsher light on the controversy surrounding drugs in boxing given the greater potential for a fighter being serious damaged or worse against a juiced-up opponent. 

It cannot be emphasised enough: boxing is unique even among contact sports in that the objective is to render your opponent unconscious with hard punches to the head and chin.

It’s a sport that straddles a fine and precarious line between nobility and barbarity, and thus it is incumbent on everyone with a vested interest in protecting boxing’s integrity to do whatever it takes to clamp down on the crisis that is now engulfing it over drugs.

Massive fines and extensive bans must surely now be given for each failed test, with a lifetime ban automatic after three failed tests. Not only the fighter but also the trainer should be punished if his fighter fails a drug test, and also the promoter.  

That way, the consequences go all the way up the food chain, and with them responsibility for ensuring that a given fighter enters the ring clean.

There must be a root-and-branch reform of the sport’s handling of this issue. Yes, every top-level professional sport faces the same challenges of combatting performance-enhancing drugs, but boxing is unique in that it revolves around unarmed combat between two highly trained athletes who’ve trained specifically and systematically to optimise their punching power.   

Though we have yet to learn of the specific circumstances surrounding Whyte’s case, he has failed a test and been banned previously, which will no doubt colour the opinions of many in this case.

On a broader level, it would be the height of naivety to believe that doping in boxing is not widespread. The stakes involved, the money elite fighters make and what they put themselves through in training dictates that drugs are more prevalent in the sport than most would care to admit.

So it is high time that the stakes involved in taking the risk of using drugs and being caught are every bit as high as those involved in winning or losing a given fight or title. 

Beyond doubt at this point is that in choosing not to inform Rivas of Whyte’s failed test prior to the fight, Ukad, Hearn and the British Boxing Board of Control may well have incurred significant reputational harm.

As for Whyte, his fate and reputation it would now seem come down to a contest of legitimacy between two separate anti-doping agencies. Insane is the word that springs to mind.