{"id":323353,"date":"2025-12-02T19:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T19:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/323353\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T19:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T19:19:11","slug":"alimkhanuly-fails-drug-test-pulled-from-title-bout-vs-lara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/323353\/","title":{"rendered":"Alimkhanuly fails drug test, pulled from title bout vs. Lara"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/hale_andreas.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Andreas HaleDec 3, 2025, 05:13 AM<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Andreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA, boxing and pro wrestling. In Andreas&#8217; free time, he plays video games, obsesses over music and is a White Sox and 49ers fan. He is also a host for Sirius XM&#8217;s Fight Nation. Before joining ESPN, Andreas was a senior writer at DAZN and Sporting News. He started his career as a music journalist for outlets including HipHopDX, The Grammys and Jay-Z&#8217;s Life+Times. He is also an NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker as a producer for the animated short film &#8220;Bridges&#8221; in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Unified middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly has tested positive for a banned substance and has been pulled from Saturday&#8217;s scheduled unification fight with WBA champion Erislandy Lara, who will now defend his title against Johan Gonzalez, Premier Boxing Champions announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Alimkhanuly (17-0, 12 KOs) tested positive for the banned substance meldonium in a test taken on Nov. 15 by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA). The unified champion responded to the failed test on X proclaiming his innocence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have always supported clean sport you know this well,&#8221; Alimkhanuly posted. &#8220;I was surprised when I read the news. VADA took the first test and said everything was clean. I have not made any changes to my vitamins. I don&#8217;t know what happened with the second test, so I requested a retest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I have always supported clean sport you know this well. I was surprised when I read the news. VADA took the first test and said everything was clean. I have not made any changes to my vitamins. I don&#8217;t know what happened with the second test, so I requested a retest.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Janibek Alimkhanuly (@qazaqstyle) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/qazaqstyle\/status\/1995920287179874734?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 2, 2025<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Alimkhanuly and Lara were set to meet in the co-main event of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/boxing\/story?_slug_=lamont-roach-jr-moving-fight-isaac-cruz-140-pound-title&amp;id=46468337\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Lamont Roach Jr.&#8217;s showdown with Isaac &#8220;Pitbull&#8221; Cruz<\/a> at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas. The fight was part of a loaded PBC PPV on Prime Video card.<\/p>\n<p>Alimkhanuly last fought on April 5, when he successfully retained his WBO and IBF titles against Anauel Ngamissengue. In his place will be Gonzalez (36-4, 34 KOs), who was last seen in action in March when he defeated Jarrett Hurd by split decision. Hurd retired after the loss.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez will take a major step up in challenging the oldest current champion in boxing. Lara (31-3-3, 19 KOs), 42, hasn&#8217;t fought since September 2024, when he successfully retained his title by stopping Danny Garcia.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andreas HaleDec 3, 2025, 05:13 AM CloseAndreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-323353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}