Susie Ramadan admits she “probably shouldn’t” have made accusations Cherneka Johnson was on performance-enhancing drugs, but remains adamant she was “set-up” to fail.
Johnson beat Ramadan via unanimous decision to retain her IBF super bantamweight title at Rod Laver Arena in an absolute bloodbath that had the crowd riding every shot.
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In her post-fight interview with Main Event commentator Ben Damon in the ring, Ramadan requested to “get her [Johnson] tested” and alleged “she’s on it [PEDs]”.
Speaking on the Main Event broadcast, Paul Kent criticised Ramadan’s comments.
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“I don’t know what to say,” Kent said. “I’ve never seen that happen… that was stunning. Ramadan shouldn’t be saying that, she’s got no evidence. To come out and make an allegation like that in the moments after you’ve been beaten and comprehensively beaten.
“She seemed to think towards the end of the fight she was still a chance of winning, she’d had two points deducted for punching illegally and a knockdown cost her. How she thought she had any chance of winning on the scorecards is beyond me.”
However, Ramadan appeared to walk back on her allegations.
“Look I probably shouldn’t have said what I said at the end, I didn’t mean to accuse her or anything like that,” Ramadan said in the post-fight press conference.
“We got told by her team, we asked for some drug tests prior to the fight and nothing could get done.
“Where’s the urine test now, we’re supposed to get that done.
“I’ve come up two weight divisions, so I was always going to be small. It is a bit disappointing.”
Johnson, who didn’t hear the allegations in the ring, claimed Ramadan is not the first to make such a claim and had one message for the doubters.
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“A lot of people are going around with those accusations at the moment,” Johnson said.
“Get me tested if you want. I worked hard. I did everything in this camp, to my nutrition, to my training, to my sleep. I just gave everything to this fight.
“I had a short camp and a little bit of a rough camp, but you know what? It’s probably been my best one to date.”
Johnson, who gained a nasty gash on her forehead thanks to an accidental head clash early in the fight, admitted she “couldn’t actually see” due to the blood pouring down her face and into her eye.
Ramadan somehow got some of Johnson’s blood in her own mouth and claimed her rival “stuck her finger in my mouth, which was a bit weird”.
But her main frustration came from the referee, who she felt was against her the moment he was appointed and failed to stop Johnson from employing her “bully” tactics in the ring.
“She [Johnson] does a lot of pushing and holding and grabbing around the neck and stuff like that,” Ramadan said.
“We asked him (the ref) to watch out for it because she does it. She did it numerous times in the fight and you could see it. The ref did nothing about it. No warnings, no nothing.
“As soon as we found out he was going to be the ref, we said, ‘Yeah, this is pretty much a set-up.’ What do you do?”
