The following is a Third World perspective of the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in international MMA, from this writer who plays an active part in Philippine MMA as team manager, gym owner and former fighter.
I will not burden you with the oft-written about details on the biochemical effects and ethical dimensions of PED use.
Suffice it to say that, first, prolonged use results in debilitating, and at times fatally harmful, effects on the user’s health. And second, it is cheating; it gives the user-athlete undue advantage over the non-user, especially in combat sports.
This undue and unethical advantage becomes more pronounced vis-à-vis the context of MMA’s explosive growth worldwide.
The use of these drugs is all the more unconscionable now that more and more athletes from the developed, developing and in-between nations are making a career of MMA fighting; it exacerbates the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
While it is true that even in First World countries like the United States and Japan, there are MMA fighters who belong to the lower socio-economic strata, you can just imagine how much more disadvantaged poor fighters there are in impoverished Third World countries.
You have First World fighters benefiting from state-of-the-art training facilities and equipment, certified sports trainers and nutritionists, a proper athlete’s diet, nutritional supplements and even PEDs?!
Heck, here in my tropical ex-banana republic, most of our fighters are more than grateful for three square meals a day—regardless of the sport’s required nutritional values.
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