Author: Scott Harris

Zuffa recently began requiring all fighters to pass a drug test before signing with the UFC or Strikeforce. Is it a nice step forward? Indubitably. Will it prevent problematic figures from behaving badly and in so doing wash said figures out of the MMA discourse? No, it won’t.

Nothing can, really, short of replacing the human brain with microchips. And while we wait for the arrival of our computer overlords, the drumbeat of troublesome headlines continues. This month, it’s road rage beatings and awful felony sexual assault. Next month, who knows? It’s a big world out there.

Still, with more eyes on their brands than ever before, now might be a good time for Zuffa to consider a wide-ranging fighter conduct policy. It’s not a panacea, but it’s a key move that would show how serious the UFC and Strikeforce are about their fighters and their growing platform.

Before we dive in, it might be good to set some context. I realize most fighters are respectful and respectable people. They work incredibly hard and are devoted to their craft, their fans and their communities. Every Fernando Rodrigues or Brett Rogers is matched in triplicate by a Jon Jones or a Cain Velasquez. I know that, and you know that.

But I also know that MMA isn’t like other sports. If you need a full explanation, you’re reading the wrong article. But suffice it to say that when it comes to this conversation, the sport has three things working against it that most other sports do not.

First, it’s fighting. 

Second, it doesn’t have a well-defined feeder system to siphon off the bad fruit (or at least flag it for closer inspection). Once you reach the NFL or NBA, you’ve spent at least some time on a college campus (unless you’re Brandon Jennings). Major League Baseball and hockey have deep farm systems. Sure, MMA has college wrestling and minor-league-type promotions, but there’s very little organization and no clear requirements or way stations, explicit or implicit.

Third, MMA is seeking a foothold on the mainstream landscape, and doing so against some pretty strong headwinds. Might as well admit that the human cockfighting thing is never completely going away. But there’s more. Other teams and leagues are national brands that carry entire cities or regions on their backs. In my opinion, no matter how talented, charismatic and good-natured a fighter is, he or she is never going to be grand marshal of a tickertape parade. 

To put it another way, other sports have solid and longstanding client relationships. MMA, even the UFC, is still making a lot of cold calls.

So with all that in mind, you want to put your best foot forward. That means a clear and public code of conduct that goes beyond drug testing. Dana White recently said he believes such a code is unnecessary. I respectfully beg to differ.

In the Zuffa of today, UFC fighter Miguel Torres gets cut for an off-color tweet, but Brandon Saling gets a Strikeforce contract despite being a neo-Nazi and convicted rapist. He has since been released, but the damage was already done.

In devising such a code, Zuffa can take a page from the NFL player code of conduct, which reserves the right to levy all sorts of punishments for all sorts of “conduct detrimental.” It would be complicated, but not undoable. Keep your nose clean when you’re out in public. Leave the proverbial job at the proverbial office.

But given the aforementioned lack of a feeder system, it should go a step further and include a routine background check. Employers across the workforce use these all the time to make sure they’re not, you know, hiring convicted rapists.

If a fighter runs afoul of the law while under contract, what would the punishments be? Fines, suspensions, lifetime bans. It doesn’t matter as long as they are consistent, have teeth and fit the crime. Assault, in particular, should be met with a particularly low threshold of tolerance.  

Here’s a suggestion for comparatively lesser crimes: demotion. All the more reason to set up Strikeforce as the AAA UFC (which also helps address the lack of a feeder system). There is precedent for using such a tactic punitively: New Jersey Nets head coach Avery Johnson sent lottery pick Terrence Williams down to the NBA D-League as punishment.

You can have a clear policy and still leave yourself plenty of flexibility. The two are not mutually exclusive. A drug testing policy is not the same as a criminal behavior or personal conduct policy. There are simply too many stripes in the conduct rainbow to limit it to just one band. Zuffa undoubtedly knows that and should expand their public policies accordingly, just as they are expanding into other new frontiers on the sporting landscape.

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