FORMER WBC WORLD light-middleweight champion Mia St. John has claimed she was on performance-enhancing drugs for roughly 20 of her 65 professional fights between 1997 and 2016.
St. John retired in 2016 with a record of 49-14-2, and held the green strap in 2012.
The American-Mexican, also a model and businesswoman, recently came under fire from a number of male and female professional fighters after she claimed on Twitter that “Everyone does it (PEDs) & everyone in boxing knows it.”
Sorry to inform you BUT NOT EVERYONE does it sweetie! Some of us former world champions actually believe in training insanely hard and having a fair fight and what will be will be, It’s sad and worrying that people taking PED’s actually think like you do! 😔 #BanThemForLife
I agree with @TonyBellew on this one @MiaStJohnBoxer ! In the amateurs I got random drug testing once or twice a month! Everyone around me believes in clean sport. Some athletes change our diet, sleeping schedules & just life to be a step ahead of the others.PEDS are inexcusable https://t.co/7c48hwv0Bm
St. John has since deleted the tweet in question and clarified her belief that some, if not all, professional pugilists use prohibited substances to boost their performances in the ring.
The 51-year-old Californian native then did an interview with Lance Pugmire in the Los Angeles Times, to whom she made her initial claim, in which she admitted to using PEDs in almost a third of her bouts in the punch-for-pay ranks.
St. John told The Times that for about 20 unspecified fights during her career, she used steroids such as Winstrol, Deca Durabolin and Anavar as well as banned masking agents and weight-loss substances.
I knew if I came clean I’d be ostracized, but I’d rather live a “clean” life, free from the lies & deception so prevalent in sports. Our lives & health simply are not worth any sport🥊My FIGHT 4 #MentalHealth is far more significant than a #BOXING match👊🏽https://t.co/3dH4rKT3Lk
“I never once tested positive, and I’ve never told anyone this, but now that I’m retired I feel like it’s OK,” St. John told Pugmire.
“It’s not right, but what I’m trying to say is that it’s a vicious cycle we get caught up in. You’re in a gym. You’re in a big camp. Obviously, I was part of the biggest shows of my time.
So when your camp is doing it, it’s going around the gym, your sparring partners are doing it, you feel compelled — ‘Oh my God, I have to do it’ — to keep up with everybody. It’s a mind trick. And once you’re on it, it’s so hard to come off because it becomes very addicting. That’s what people don’t know. I’m not going to say what fights [I used] because then people can trace back to what cards I was on, what camp I was in, who I was training with… I would never out anybody.
“Obviously, it’s not every single fighter”, she added, “but there were a lot. I saw so much of it in my career and I don’t mind coming out with this now because it’s a serious issue that our sport needs to address.
I was tested many times. There’s many methods to get around it. Just because you didn’t get caught doesn’t mean you weren’t doing it. It just meant you didn’t get caught. I did my homework. They gave us a whole list of what not to do and I knew a lot of stuff I was doing was on that list. I did everything I could to mask it — masking drugs, catheters with other people’s urine — and then the rest is up to luck.
St. John ‘came clean’ in response to criticism leveled at Mexican boxing superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, who tested positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol following his controversial draw with fellow middleweight standout Gennady Golovkin last September.
Canelo attributed his positive tests to meat contamination in his native land and served a backdated six-month suspension. He faces Golovkin in a rematch next month.
On Friday, Golovkin said of rival Canelo: “He is one of the dirtiest and most unpleasant fighters [I have faced].
“He’s a dirty fighter for using substances and blaming others for it, it’s a dirty tactic.”
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Former women's boxing champion claims she used PEDs for about 20 of her professional fights
FORMER WBC WORLD light-middleweight champion Mia St. John has claimed she was on performance-enhancing drugs for roughly 20 of her 65 professional fights between 1997 and 2016.
St. John retired in 2016 with a record of 49-14-2, and held the green strap in 2012.
The American-Mexican, also a model and businesswoman, recently came under fire from a number of male and female professional fighters after she claimed on Twitter that “Everyone does it (PEDs) & everyone in boxing knows it.”
St. John has since deleted the tweet in question and clarified her belief that some, if not all, professional pugilists use prohibited substances to boost their performances in the ring.
The 51-year-old Californian native then did an interview with Lance Pugmire in the Los Angeles Times, to whom she made her initial claim, in which she admitted to using PEDs in almost a third of her bouts in the punch-for-pay ranks.
St. John told The Times that for about 20 unspecified fights during her career, she used steroids such as Winstrol, Deca Durabolin and Anavar as well as banned masking agents and weight-loss substances.
“I never once tested positive, and I’ve never told anyone this, but now that I’m retired I feel like it’s OK,” St. John told Pugmire.
“It’s not right, but what I’m trying to say is that it’s a vicious cycle we get caught up in. You’re in a gym. You’re in a big camp. Obviously, I was part of the biggest shows of my time.
“Obviously, it’s not every single fighter”, she added, “but there were a lot. I saw so much of it in my career and I don’t mind coming out with this now because it’s a serious issue that our sport needs to address.
St. John ‘came clean’ in response to criticism leveled at Mexican boxing superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, who tested positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol following his controversial draw with fellow middleweight standout Gennady Golovkin last September.
Canelo attributed his positive tests to meat contamination in his native land and served a backdated six-month suspension. He faces Golovkin in a rematch next month.
On Friday, Golovkin said of rival Canelo: “He is one of the dirtiest and most unpleasant fighters [I have faced].
“He’s a dirty fighter for using substances and blaming others for it, it’s a dirty tactic.”
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Boxing Disgrace Mia St. John