Some fighters get luckier. Some, like Subriel Matias, can fail a performance-enhancing drugs test and still get the green light to fight by the president of the sanctioning body whose title they hold. Why that is, one can only speculate, but Matias, the latest boxer to receive sanctioning-body backing, can consider himself a lucky boy as one year ends and another begins. He is lucky because despite failing a VADA test for ostarine – a selective androgen receptor modulator known to boost testosterone and endurance – on November 9, the Puerto Rican’s super-lightweight title defence against Dalton Smith, scheduled for January 10, will apparently go ahead as planned. He will by all accounts be placed on probation for one year and undergo further testing at his own cost, but other than that, no harm, no foul, it would seem. In fact, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman declared in Bangkok only recently that he was confident that Matias’ positive test was a consequence of contaminated substances.
