{"id":253245,"date":"2025-07-10T10:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T10:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/253245\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T10:36:12","slug":"morrell-khataev-fight-in-jeopardy-boxing-news-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/253245\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrell-Khataev Fight In Jeopardy &#8211; Boxing News 24"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Morrell Jr\u2019s opponent for Saturday, Imam Khataev, has been told by the International Testing Agency (ITA) that he tested positive for the banned substance clomifene from last year on April 9th. As such, Morrell vs. Khataev undercard light heavyweight fight is now in jeopardy for this Saturday, July 12th, at the Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York and <a class=\"thirstylink\" rel=\"sponsored noopener\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"DAZN\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boxingnews24.com\/go\/dazn-3\/\" data-shortcode=\"true\">live on DAZN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Imam Khataev Drug Test Failure<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Eye of the Tiger promotions spoke on behalf of the 2020 Olympic bronze medalist Khataev (10-0, 9 KOs), saying that Khataev, 30, didn\u2019t \u201cknowingly or intentionally\u201d use any product that would lead to his violation of the anti-doping regulations. \u201cThe only possible explanation for this adverse analytical finding is food contamination,\u201d Eye of the Tiger says.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Securing a Last-Minute Boxer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t look good for Morrell-Khataev for Saturday in light of this breaking news. If Khataev is off, it\u2019s questionable whether a late replacement can be found in time for Morrell (11-1, 9 KOs) to remain on Saturday\u2019s card. Losing the talented Cuban from the card would be a major loss, as he was one of the bright spots for the undercard.<\/p>\n<p>Surely, there\u2019s got to be someone hungry and ambitious enough to step in to fight Morrell on late notice. If it could be done with Shakur Stevenson\u2019s last fight, with a simple, everyday, ordinary British electrician, Josh Padley, dug up on less than a week\u2019s notice last February, it can be done for Morrell if Turki Alalshikh is willing to go in that direction. Having Morrell on the undercard will help motivate the fence sitters, who are still debating whether to purchase this card on <a class=\"thirstylink\" rel=\"sponsored noopener\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"DAZN\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boxingnews24.com\/go\/dazn-3\/\" data-shortcode=\"true\">DAZN PPV<\/a> for the $59.99.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Khataev Doping Allegations Explained<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cImam did not knowingly or intentionally take anything that would violate any anti-doping regulations. This is all the more the case in light of the numerous anti-doping tests carried out since April 2024, all of which have proved negative. Imam will not be making any further comment on the matter,\u201d said Eye of the Tiger promotions on behalf of Imam Khataev.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Morrell Jr\u2019s opponent for Saturday, Imam Khataev, has been told by the International Testing Agency (ITA) that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-253245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114828501935156243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}