GARY CULLY has weighed in on the doping farce that surrounds Jose Felix, revealing that no drugs testing took place before or after their encounter.
It was confirmed by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) last month that Felix, who tested positive for two anabolic steroids over 18 months ago, has been banned from all World Anti-Doping Code-compliant sports for five years.
His doping violation emerged from a post-fight UKAD test where, after suffering a fifth-round stoppage defeat against Lewis Crocker, the Mexican was found to have metabolites of metandienone and stanozolol within his system.
Yet despite his ban commencing in April of last year, Felix was nonetheless permitted to enter an eight-rounder in his home nation last month.
That is because his ban, until recently, has somehow remained silent, meaning that commissions have had no way of knowing the extent of his punishment.
During which time, UKAD had offered Felix a possible retroactive Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) which, if secured, may have reduced the harshness of his ban.
The 33-year-old, however, could not provide the necessary medical information, despite claiming that both adverse findings were caused by medication he had been prescribed for an achilles injury.
As a result of the drawn-out process, ‘Josesito’ should now remain out of a boxing ring until 2029, while former opponent Cully, 18-2 (10 KOs), suspects that his ban could have arrived sooner.
Prior to his clash with Crocker, Felix pulled off a sizable upset to halt Cully with a third-round finish in 2023.
According to Cully, though, there was no pre-fight or post-fight testing that took place during that time, meaning that Felix could have quite easily been doping ahead of their showdown.
In fact, the Irishman strongly suspects that he was.
“Felix came in on 3 weeks’ notice, laughing and joking with his traps touching his ears,” Cully wrote on X yesterday, just a few hours before revealing the lack of drugs testing around their fight.
“[I] always had this suspicion [that Felix was doping] but didn’t want to sound like a sore loser, but glad he’s proven to be a cheating rat.”
