Ringside Boxing Show: No defense offered in Meatgate Scandal, GGG’s May 5 conundrum, Tyson’s weird interview, Hurd-Lara, DeGale-Truax

When a squeaky-clean reputation gets tarnished, it’s hard to erase the stain. Canelo Alvarez insists he’s innocent but offers no solid defense for testing dirty for PEDs twice before his May 5 date with Gennady Golovkin. Instead of facing the Nevada State Athletic Commission, he opted to withdraw from the fight. Will his career carry an asterisk forever more? Can we ever be anything but suspicious? That’s the lead topic for our expert analysts, Travis Hartman, Rizwaan Zahid, and John J. Raspanti, who also wonder whether Golovkin will replace Canelo with a meaningful opponent next month, or cash an easy check and move on to fall. We also talk about Mike Tyson’s uncomfortable interview on Showtime (was he drunk, drugged, or showing signs of head injury?), and Mayweather’s surprising call out of Vasyl Lomachenko for his young star, Gervonta Davis.

And we conduct an in-depth interview during the second half of the show with boxing trainer Max Garcia and ring strategist Dean Familton on what it takes, front to back in training camp, to prepare smoking-hot prospect Ruben Villa IV for the biggest fight of his young career.

Dennis Taylor is host of The Ringside Boxing Show, editor-publisher of ringsideboxingshow.com, and co-author (with John J. Raspanti) of “Intimate Warfare: The True Story of the Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward Boxing Trilogy,” currently available at Amazon.