THE British Boxing Board of Control has confirmed that Edinburgh super-middleweight Kenny Anderson has been given a two-year ring ban after testing positive for a banned substance.
The 30-year-old cannot return until October next year at the earliest as a result of failing a routine drugs test following his British super-middleweight title win over Robin Reid 14 months ago. The British Boxing Board of Control has also stripped Anderson of the Lonsdale Belt after he claimed previously that he had vacated the title for "personal reasons".
Anderson insisted his drink had been spiked, but his defence that he was an innocent victim was dismissed by the BBBC's disciplinary panel.
Robert Smith, chief executive of the sport's governing body, said: "He failed a dope test and was suspended for two years. That is the automatic punishment and it usually dates from the time of the boxer's last contest when he produced a positive sample after his fight with Reid in October 2012. After a period of two years has elapsed he can reapply for his licence and we'll take it from there.
"Fortunately, there are not many instances of this in boxing, considering the amount of tests we carry out, on average one a week usually."
Anderson's manager, Steve Wood, added: "Kenny has been fighting the case after claiming that someone spiked his coffee with amphetamine. That was kind of accepted but he was told it is your responsibility what goes in your body and it's just unfortunate that Kenny appealed the decision and obviously lost."
Meanwhile, Edinburgh middleweight Craig McEwan has failed in his attempt to rejuvenate his career in the States. The 31-year-old returned to the ring in New York on Wednesday evening after an absence of eight months, but suffered a unanimous points defeat at the hands of Dashon Johnson in a six-round contest at the BB King Blues Club & Diner, where the judges scored it 58-55, twice, and 57-56 in favour of the home fighter.
It was McEwan's 22nd bout in American after he was forced to cross the Atlantic after being snubbed by British promoters. Since returning from Hollywood nearly two years ago, McEwan has had only five contests despite building an impressive record of 19 wins and only two defeats in five years fighting out of Hollywood.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article