Hamzah Sheeraz wants a fight with Canelo Alvarez badly enough to talk about it whenever he gets the chance. Yet he gave up his WBO super middleweight title rather than face Janibek Alimkhanuly, citing Janibek’s positive drug test. Dan Rafael sees the problem: Canelo has a positive test in his past, too.
The cases happened years apart, and Sheeraz is free to draw a distinction. But if his objection is that a fighter who tested positive should not share the ring with him, the size of the payday should not decide when that principle applies. Canelo tested positive for clenbuterol in 2018 and served a six-month suspension.
“If your point is, ‘I don’t want to fight the guy because he flunked the drug test,’ fine. Then give up the title before the purse bid. Don’t wait till you see a number that you’re unsatisfied with,” said Rafael to About Boxing.
Queensberry won the purse bid for Sheeraz–Janibek at just over $1 million, leaving Sheeraz with roughly $750,000 under the purse split. Days later, Sheeraz vacated.
That sequence is what makes his explanation so difficult to sell. Sheeraz knew Janibek’s testing history before the bid. If it ruled out the fight, he had an opportunity to give up the belt then. Waiting until his own promoter won the right to stage it makes the money impossible to ignore.
Sheeraz won the vacant title against Alem Begic, then struggled through a majority decision over Simon Zachenhuber in his first defense. Janibek would have been a far tougher test and a less lucrative attraction than Canelo. There is no shame in admitting that $750,000 was not enough for the risk. Fighters make those calculations all the time.
Instead, Sheeraz is asking the public to believe the test was decisive against Janibek while Canelo remains a dream opponent. Rafael did not need to guess what was said behind closed doors to expose the weakness in that position. He only had to put the two names side by side.
If Sheeraz truly had a zero-tolerance moral code about stepping into the ring with anyone who ever failed a drug test, Canelo Alvarez would be the very first name erased from his hit list. Canelo served a six-month suspension in 2018 after testing positive for clenbuterol. That is on the public record.
Yet Sheeraz and his team have spent the last two years desperately campaigning, begging, and posturing for a shot at Canelo. Nobody heard a single peep out of Sheeraz about clenbuterol, clean sport, or ring safety when he was envisioning an eight-figure check and global pay-per-view lights opposite the Mexican superstar.
