Could Boxing Take A Lesson From The Maria Sharapova Story?

Perhaps you've heard by now - tennis star Maria Sharapova has been banned from playing professional tennis for two years - that's a hell of a long time - for doping. Funny how boxers who get caught doping don't seem to receive those types of punishments, even though boxers - unlike tennis players - can literally kill one another in the practice of their trade.

Nope. What we get in boxing is TUEs and arguments of "mistakes" and "small amounts." Best of all, we get arguments of "who even cares?" or "if you had a clue about this or that drug then you'd know it's no big deal." Again, we're talking about a sport where people concuss one another. That makes it a big deal to me.

Look, I'm not saying that every fighter who ever tested positive for a banned substance is a juicer. Nor am I saying that draconian punishments should be the law of the land. Is it wrong to ask, though, if those who handed Sharapova down her punishment got it right? Or if the UFC gets it right for it's supposed "no excuses" policy?

As Gennady Golovkin makes clear, boxing isn't a sport to be taken lightly. It's serious, serious, business...sometimes of the life and death variety. Are we so open minded that we're laissez faire about individual fighter's well being? If we are, then I argue we're not open minded at all. Rather, we're sociopathic.

Fortunately, I don't think we are. At least not the vast majority of us.