The former welterweight and middleweight champ likes USADA, but doesn’t think the program is foolproof.
Georges St-Pierre drew a line in the sand when he left the sport back in 2013, saying he wouldn’t return to fight unless the UFC did something about the rampant steroid use in MMA. That stance played a decent role in the promotion adding USADA testing for all fighters in 2015, and while the new program is good enough to get GSP back, it’s not as definitive as maybe you might think.
“Even now, it’s still easy to [cheat],” St-Pierre told Joe Rogan in a recent episode of his podcast (via MMA Fighting). “Let’s say I want to have an injection of a product that will last in my body for two days or one day. So I know that particular day I cannot be tested, because if I am, I’m screwed.”
“So I put on my [USADA] whereabouts [app] that I’m traveling to freaking Antarctica or anywhere, somewhere that is believable, and then I come back two days after. That substance will stay in my body for a certain period of time, but the effect of it will last maybe a month. And now we’re talking about performance enhancing drugs — people, they misunderstand this.”
“They go, ‘Well yeah, but it still doesn’t make a difference,’” St-Pierre continued. “Yes, it does make the different in an athlete. And the reason, in the eighties and before, [PEDs gave] you more power, more stamina, more endurance. Now, man, with the technology, they have stuff that will change your reaction time, your confidence, your reset time.”
“And this is a huge, huge application, man. If you play baseball or you’re fighting, you see the things coming, you have your reaction time, you’re sharper in the brain. What makes a guy athletic, it’s not his muscle. The reason why Usain Bolt ran faster — there’s many reasons why, but one of the main reasons is because his brain, his nervous system is faster.”
“And if you make your nervous system better and more competent, you’re a better athlete. You’re a better fighter, you’re a better baseball player. You’re a better person, in a way. Of course that effect is limited, but there’s still the muscle memory thing that will last and it could last forever.”
“It’s very hard to catch people,” Georges concluded. “So like I said, it’s easy to take something.”