Boxing News 2014: American Heavyweight Boxer Fres Oquendo Tests Positive For Prohibited Substances, Faces Suspension

Boxing veteran Fres Oquendo faces suspension from the World Boxing Association (WBA) after mandatory tests after his world heavyweight title fight against Ruslan Chagaev last July 6, 2014 proved he tested positive for a couple of prohibited substances tamoxifin and anastrozole. The 41-year-old American heavyweight will also be demanded to return his fight purse for the fight as per the fight contract.

Despite being found with the banned drugs, Oquendo still lost to Chagaev, 113-115, 114-114, 113-115 in the fight held at the Ahmat Arena in Grozny, Russia. The loss snapped a five-game win streak for the American, whose last loss before this came in December 2010. Oquendo, who is from Andijan,Uzbekistan, notched the vacant WBA world heavyweight title.

Tumur Dugazev, whose boxing outfit promoted the fight, said that there was a whole bunch of strange circumstances leading up to the bout including Oquendo refusing to travel to Grozny for the press conference and public workout and the American’s camp even asked to postpone the fight.

“He probably thought that he couldn’t be convicted at a later time. Finally Oquendo and his team tried to blackmail us and ask for more money. And three months after the fight – probably after being informed about the positive testing – they came up with ridiculous claims and spoke badly about Chechnyan President Ramzan Kadyrov and Andrey Ryabinsky even though both men had done their best to make sure that Oquendo and his team had a great time in Grozny. Ramzan Kadyrov and Andrey Ryabinsky are men of honor. To talk about them the way Oquendo’s team did is just disgusting and another proof for their bad character,” Dugazev said via fightnews.com.

Chagaev, the no. 1 fighter out of Uzbekistan, has now won six straight bouts with the first five in this stretch coming via knockout, technical knockout or easy unanimous decision victories. The Uzbek improved to a win-loss-draw record of 33-2-1 with 20 KOs and is now ranked the 10th best heavyweight in the world as per ringtv.com, the respected boxing website.