Why Lucas Browne may never fight again

Correction. Chaegev had Hep B not HIV. My bad

First up. If Browne did knowingly take Clen before the fight with Chagaev, without a doubt it would have helped him scrape himself up off the canvas after Chagaev put him down. Clen is a stimulant and taking it is effectively the same as removing some of the padding in your gloves or putting hard pads in your wraps. But just how impressive was Browne in that fight anyway? His face was a mess, he was behind on some objective scorecards and he ate canvas against a very bloated, faded, 37 year-old, former prospect, coming back from multiple serious injuries, and HIV! Without the cheating allegation it might have been a nice story in a Chuck Wepner kind of way, but in purely boxing terms he was very underwhelming. Now, the issue here is that cheating in sport is always reprehensible. But when the sport is boxing, a sport where if rules aren't followed it can lead to boxers dying or getting permanent brain injuries, cheating is absolutely the most abhorrent thing anyone can do. We have to get cheats out of boxing and you Aussies basically saying 'oh he's such a nice bloke he probably didn't do it' definitely doesn't help, and the real scandal is this BS 6-month suspension. 2 years should be the minimum for anyone caught with anything in their system irrespective of anything. The athlete is always responsible for what's in his or her bloodstream. It's not that hard. Because Browne has the entire Australian boxing market to himself he's been elevated way beyond his boxing deserves. He waddles around the ring with his elbows out like he’s doing the funky chicken, he doesn’t have anywhere near the power a man of his size should and whenever he gets even the slightest tap he flinches like someone spilled his pint. I sympathise with you Aussies wanting to have a compatriot to cheer for, but it’s become very clear that a substantial portion of Browne’s fanbase aren’t really fans of boxing, they’re just fans of Australia. Now there’s nothing wrong with that per se, but when they don’t understand the larger issues in boxing and go against real fans who want to see the sport get cleaned up, it’s very frustrating.

This guy is obviously from our mother country,and the sooner we cut ties with it the better,as our wonderful Britistan will soon be ruled from elswhere.Browne went over to an extremely hostile country,with machine gun toting security people circling the ring.He won a great fight against a good champion.I mean seriously who has David Haye defeated,De Mori,and the last guy,forget his name,got knocked out from a jab.Cant remembe his name,but he was built like a piece of spaghetti.Browne got caught with a banned drug in his system,Clenbuterol is a very powerful fat burning agent with mild anobolic properties,and is used over the long term,for dramatic weight loss.It also is quite dangerous when used in large amounts.Clenbuterol is one of the first drugs they test for,and Browne and his management would have been aware of this.It comes in powdered form,which makes it easy to slip in a drink or anything for that matter.If Browne was clean before he went over,it would have been useless for him to use this drug.I remain very skeptical of any athlete,including those from my homeland who cry setup when they are caught with PED,but this one absolutely makes no sense.I would not think that Browne would beat Fury,Klitscho etc,but he is a far better fighter then this pom is giving him

At what point did I suggest Fury is unbeatable? Brush up on your terminology sport! Objectively, Klitschko was The Man. Fury beat The Man, now he’s The Man, but obviously The Man can still be beaten. I’m not sure who you were listening to, but credible pundits never doubted Fury’s pedigree, which he’s always had through his family background and amateur record, but there were and still are doubts over his commitment and intelligence. When he was walking into the ring with a massive spare tire around his waist and getting tagged by tin-can level opposition, not to mention upper-cutting himself in face once, it didn’t really look like his path to the pinnacle of the sport was ever going to be plain sailing. For many years both Klitschkos did seem unbeatable, which killed heavyweight boxing. That wasn’t their fault, they were and still are fantastic ambassadors for the sport, but those days are over and we can look forward to quite a few years of exciting, competitive heavyweight match-ups (not involving Browne of course he is and was only ever going to be a warm-up act). All I’m trying to do is help you Aussies come to terms with this doping scandal by helping you understand what has potentially been lost to you in the context of the larger heavyweight boxing landscape. You didn’t have a real heavyweight champ in Lucas Browne and realistically he was, and is never getting there. How quickly can this WBA tournament reach its conclusion, which it would have to do for Browne to get his shot? Think about the timeline. Ortiz v Ustinov is still unscheduled at the time of writing, so the winner of Fury vs. Klitschko waits for that, pushing the absolute earliest date that round can happen to around the first quarter of 2017, meaning best case scenario for Browne to get his shot is in late summer of 2017. Now even in that completely unrealistically optimistic scenario (there are almost countless ways in which that could be delayed), Browne was set to go at the very least 16 months with only one, probably not very well paying fight against Oquendo, all the while denying himself and his promoters a David Haye payday? No. He was only ever going to take the cash, get sparko’d then effectively retire. As I said, that opportunity has now gone with the payday going to Shannon Briggs. Even with this, by Browne’s own admission, slightly bogus regular title, Browne and Briggs belong on the same level, which is at least two rungs down from the real championship belt-holders. Briggs got his shot against Lewis by beating and a faded Foreman, likewise the only name on Browne’s CV other than Chagaev is Toney who was a shadow of the boxer he once was. And Browne was behind and looked a mess against Chagaev before the KO. Would a good win against Oquendo make such a huge statement that Browne could justify a shot off the back of that given that we are talking about a guy who’s lost 8 times before? Get real! As for AJ, when Showtime come knocking at your door looking to sign you up, you are elite.

I appreciate your effort Daniel, but the essential thrust of your argument, i.e. that the drug ban signals the end of Browne's career, has more holes in it than a Dutchman's favourite cheese. Why would his team continue with what you correctly identify as an improbable and likely expensive, attempt to clear Browne's name? However way you cut it, Clenbuterol was in his system and that is always the athlete's responsibility. The legal challenge is in effect a PR exercise to create enough reasonable doubt to pave the way for future fights. Money talks in boxing. They don’t spend all their time and effort getting him right on the cusp of some serious paydays to just let him quit. The only way he does clear his name is by continuing to fight, winning and doing so clean. Now I would have let you off had you not dropped an absolute howler in mentioning Browne’s and Fury’s names in the same sentence. What would be the chance of him getting a match-up against the foul-mouthed Mancunian bigot? He’d have two options. Bob Hope and no hope. Sanctioning bodies generally allow their champions to take unification bouts over mandatory defences. Tyson has 4 titles if you include the Ring and IBO. He’s the man who beat the man. Like with the IBF, Tyson would drop the WBA super championship belt in a heartbeat if there’s a multi-million super-fight in the offing. Calzaghe fought Jones and Hopkins with only the lineal strap on the line. Belts aren’t completely meaningless, but there are many other factors to take into account. Factors that very often have a much greater bearing. If Tyson were to elect to beat up an Aussie bouncer in a 12-round non-PPV snooze fest, instead of taking on a serious contender, he’d do his reputation serious damage. That elite level which contains Fury, Wilder, Klitschko and now Joshua, is completely unreachable to Browne. Unless he’s able to construct a time-machine, go back 20 years, get a good amateur career and start pro boxing a decade earlier than he actually did, it’s a pipe dream. No one in recent years has done the same kind of numbers as Haye. What scalps would Browne need to reach that elite level without Haye? And could he string those together without reaching the age of 40? He was only ever going to defend against Oquendo as a means to get extra leverage in a match-up with Haye, and the fact that the war of words with the latter had already begun, only goes to show that they were starting to build that fight. Ortiz was a potential route and perhaps one that still exists given that Ortiz is likely to be more sympathetic towards an athlete who’s failed a drug test. However, Browne has as much chance of winning that fight as he does building a working time-machine. He’d probably have a better chance of winning against Haye than against ‘King Kong’. So if you’re going to lose why not make 10x the money doing it? Finally, there’s a thing in boxing called a tune-up fight. This serves another important function other than shaking off some ring-rust and showing everyone you’re still as good as before your lay-off. After three and a half year’s out, Haye still managed to sell out the 16,000 capacity O2 arena and did good numbers on terrestrial TV. Fighting against an unknown you get complete credit for that. No, Browne was only ever on his way to a lop-sided KO against Haye, followed by one or two more fights before retiring. With that opportunity gone it’s anyone’s guess where he goes, but he has no option but to continue.

Hats off to you for going to the trouble of digging up the facts surrounding bans imposed on fighters caught doping by the WBA. It’s interesting for boxing aficionados to learn something of the penalties drug cheats face in today’s game. The conclusions you draw from these and other points you make, however, I find more difficult to congratulate you on. For a kick-off, without the doping ban how much longer was Lucas Browne going to be around for anyway? Let’s be clear on what he was fighting Chagaev for, namely, a David Haye payday. It should be pretty obvious to everyone that either fighter would most probably have got KO’d within around 2-8 rounds against Haye, but could expect compensation to the tune of 0.5-2 million UK. Sure, after that effective inevitability, either fighter might opt to fight on by dropping down to club/domestic level in the hope of rebuilding towards one more big payday. But in this new era of heavyweight boxing where there are fewer opportunities for average fighters than in the Klitschko years, coupled with the age of both fighters and whatever negative health impacts they might still be suffering from a David Haye KO, you really shouldn’t be looking at too many more big fights coming out of either anyway. Ruiz and Valuev both retired after losing to Haye and you might soon be able to add fellow Aussie De Mori to that list. The former had both held real world titles so could do so with a sense of having achieved everything they had set out to do in boxing, but like the latter, Browne would be deluding himself were he to even dream of holding or challenging for a real world title with the likes of Fury and Wilder around. For Browne, who maybe might have milked the Australian media, using his former regular world title status, for around the same money as he could expect to get from any further fights post Haye KO, what would be the point in continuing with his boxing career? More punches to the face with fists covered in 10oz gloves, or make chit chat on a sofa with a lady covered in too much fake tan? No, the impact of this doping scandal isn’t to rob boxing of several years of an elite champion in his prime. All we really lost was a colourful, but likely brief, sideshow to David Haye’s ascent to the real WBA championship mandatory position. And arguably a much more colourful sideshow in Shannon Briggs was already waiting in the wings, albeit one that perhaps delays Haye achieving his objective by 6 months or so. So for these reasons, this doping scandal actually has the opposite effect from which you argue. By not getting his David Haye payday and the warmth of the Australian media, Browne actually has more incentive to continue boxing not less, extending not curtailing his career. He just has to be a bit creative in finding places that will license him. Secondly, you seem a little too keen to accept the ‘common sense’ arguments from the Browne team around the doping allegation. Others have noted that Clenbuterol is typically used as a cutting agent and Browne didn’t look particularly cut. And why would he be cutting in a weight unlimited contest and so close to the fight itself? Clenbuterol is used as a cutting agent because it supercharges mammalian metabolisms allowing the user to do things that he or she might not otherwise have the energy to do, like for example get up off the canvas to score a 10th round TKO after taking 9 rounds or so of punishment. With other boxers operating at the same level also returning failed drug tests like Teper and Thompson, it isn’t particularly hard to imagine the doorman-turned-boxer succumbing to the same temptation given the potential rewards.

Sam went to an independent tester. IBF not happy about it but he beat the German in the rematch.

Same thing happen to Sam soilman and he was cleared in the end and won the IBF title at forty so don't give up just yet