Andre Berto & Victor Conte: WTF?
We were at a wedding this weekend and there were unfortunately no televisions at the venue. Due to these unfortunate circumstances, we were unable to see the one-sided beatdown by the enormous Andre Berto live.
We’ll have more on that fight this evening from our esteemed editor, but first an aside. Between the fourth and the fifth, HBO’s Max Kellerman did an interview with Victor Conte, Berto’s “nutritionist."
Victor "Walking Fish” Conte is famous for two things: being in Tower of Power and formulating new steroids that were totally undetectable while marketing a mineral supplement that he claimed was the reason for Barry Bonds’ and Marion Jones’ success. He also frequently tested his athletes to make sure that they would be able to beat drug tests.
Kellerman asked Victor Conte what he found when he analyzed Berto’s blood. Conte said Berto had an iron deficiency. Forgive me if I am suspicious, but I think I’ve heard this one before. Here’s an excerpt from a March 7, 2006 article from Sports Illustrated:
Conte also put Bonds through a battery of blood and urine panels. According to the pseudoscience used to shill for BALCO’s legal products, to obtain maximum athletic performance it was important to remedy minute deficiencies of zinc and magnesium with supplements, starting with ZMA. Bonds’s own doctor drew his blood, which Anderson transported for testing.
Berto actually thanked Victor Conte after the fight. In any other sport this would never happen. Only in boxing can a convicted steroid dealer that made his money helping athletes cheat be allowed to show his face on national television. What is Berto thinking? Did he just roll out of bed one day and decide that his career wouldn’t be complete without the unique cloud of suspicion that associating with the most famous steroid dealer on Earth would bring?
When asked about Conte’s checkered past, Berto defended him by saying, “He’s had a rough past but I know everything he’s done (with me) is legal.” Berto also said that nobody’s putting an injection on him. “I know that what I’m doing is legit.” Apparently Berto hasn’t heard of illegal steroids that don’t require injection, such as the cream and the clear.
Other fighters using Conte include Nonito Donaire, Andre Ward and Zab Judah. Their managers must be fucking insane. If these guys wanted to, say, learn how to lay down a supremely funky bass line, I would understand their retaining Conte, but he has absolutely no credibility whatsoever as a nutritionist.
One would think that these fighters could find someone else without such unfortunate baggage as a steroid-related prison sentence, unless Conte is offering something truly special. But correcting an iron deficiency is not really cutting-edge work.
We’re not the only ones that are suspicious. Carl Froch is demanding stringent drug testing ahead of his bout with Andre Ward. We agree with Froch that in a sport where the goal is punching one’s opponent’s head off extra care should be taken to make sure that the convicted steroid dealer assisting one fighter isn’t helping him too much.