Alberto Puello is currently the WBA junior welterweight champion-in-recess. Unlike in school, recess for a world champion is actually a bad thing, as opposed to a good thing for a say a middle-schooler.
Puello was scheduled to fight on May 13th in Las Vegas, Nevada, as he was set to make his first world title defense, before testing positive for a banned substance. Puello tested positive for Clomiphene. ProBox TV News recently caught up with Puello’s head coach, Bob Santos, who did his best to explain the situation.
“Right now, [Alberto Puello] is the champion-in-recess,” explained the coach of junior welterweight Alberto Puello, who Santos trained and recently had an issue with the NSAC after an adverse test finding. “Obviously, he still has to go in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and it is a case of turning over everything he did. Unfortunately, for him, the way I understand it. If he had put it on the papers he would have gotten an exemption, he didn’t do it. I don’t know why - I don’t know if it was a miscommunication, from Spanish into English.
This miscommunication and not alerting the commission of the substance entering his body will be a costly one, as it will risk the future of his title as well as keep him out of the ring. After Puello defeated Batyr Akhmedov via a split decision, Puello went home. That is when a lot of the following occurred.
“What I do know is after he won the world championship he went to the Dominican Republic, had surgery, and was prescribed fertility drugs,” explained Santos. “[This was so] he could up his sperm count so he could have a kid. He had been married for seven years, and he has two kids that he has raised that are biologically not his. [He and his partner] were trying to have kids for the last couple of years, so that is why he went to have the surgery….the one bright note is his wife is now pregnant, but that being said, he didn’t put it on the papers for whatever the case may be, [miscommunication, mistranslation] I don’t know…it isn’t a case of him saying someone gave me something and I didn’t know what was in the meat, I didn’t know what was in the eggs. [Puello] said this is what I did, and I did it specifically to have a kid. The ramifications of whatever they choose to do, he is going to have to own up to that, and it is probably going to be a suspension, I don’t know for how long.”
Puello also missed out on headlining a Showtime Championship Boxing card against Rolly Romero, a fight that Santos liked Puello’s chances in. In a red-hot division like junior welterweight, it stings a bit to be out of the mix, while a lot of the big names are getting big fights.
In reflection, Santos explained his own bit of frustration with the situation as he has been involved with boxing for over thirty years and never had a fighter test positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Despite a reasonable cause given, it was clear Santos didn’t like to be associated with a fighter who had failed a drug test.
“It is serious,” said Santos. “I have been in professional boxing for thirty-one years. I have never had one athlete around me test positive for anything. I have been in with [Erislandy] Lara, Robert Guerrero, and Joel Casamayor, and I have worked with the best. So that is something I always pride myself on - obviously, you can’t be with someone 24/7, but we want this sport to be clean, we want everything to be a level playing field, we want testing out there, and [Puello] was the one who wanted the testing for the fight. He wanted the testing when he fought [Batyr Akhmedov] and he also wanted the VADA testing for [the Rolando Romero fight].
