By Geno McGahee
On January 11th, Alexander Jimenez, 13-0-1, 9 KO’s, defeated super middleweight champion, Franchon Crews-Dezurn, 6-2, 2 KO’s, by split decision in a fight that she clearly won. The fact that one judge had it 97-93 for Crews-Dezurn shows that corruption is alive and well in boxing. Now, we get the news that Jimenez has failed a drug test and that the belts will likely go back to Crews-Dezurn.
Jimenez has come out and denied the claims and has stated that she has never used any performance enhancing drugs. She claims to have passed other tests and that this one test is suspicious. Golden Boy’s boss, Oscar De La Hoya, has released a statement showing his disgust in Crews-Dezurn, and if the results really do expose a cheater, then the bets should go back to the former champion. There is another thought though.
There was so much emphasis on building Crews-Dezurn that her losing meant that there was a lot of money lost as well. Boxing is as dirty as it gets and there is always potential of a fighter being screwed over to make sure that the money keeps coming in. We usually see the corruption on full display when the decisions are announced, but it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that there could be some funny business going on.
It should be interesting to see how this turns out and what happens if the other tests come back clean. I suspect that the belts will still return to Crews-Dezurn and that there will never a be a rematch.
