Athletes will always cheat if they can get away with it. It’s a lesson the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has learned and relearned for the decades over, as its champions have been hit with doping scandals.
But even today, with mandatory surprise tests taken years leading up to the actual games, runners, swimmers and weightlifters still get popped.
So what hope is there for MMA where state athletics commissions have no power to test fighters unless they’re in the state during fight week? The Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), the most powerful state as far as combat athletes are concerned, has recently introduced out-of-competition testing as a condition for granting a licence in some instances. However, once a fighter has a licence, it can no longer do that unless the fighter is actually in Nevada.
The situation for other countries is worse. The US only developed its state-based drug testing for combat athletes because of the once-mighty boxing empire. And it only did that in the face of gambling interests.
That’s the reason why gambling states such as Nevada have the biggest athletics commissions. It’s also why other big boxing nations, such as the UK, also have a sizeable regulator for combat sports. But at the national (read: federal) level, few governments are willing to involve themselves in drug testing.
That is usually left up to independent sporting bodies that govern events such as the Olympics, or organisations such as FIFA or UEFA.
When you look at the drug testing in most of the rest of the world, the picture is sobering—especially when you consider the plans the UFC has in becoming a global brand. Brazil, Japan, China, India—all these countries lack any sort of oversight when it comes to testing for drug use in fighters.
In those instances, the UFC has taken it upon itself to make sure fighters are subjected to some sort of test. That’s a situation where a promoter, the one making money directly off the fight, is testing its fighters.
The NSAC would never allow something like that to happen.
I can draw a weird parallel here, so bear with me.
In 1982, Germany and Austria were set to play their final group stage matches to advance in the knockout stages of the FIFA World Cup. The conditions were this: If Germany win by one goal and Austria lose, both teams go through to the next round. If Germany loses or both teams draw, then Germany gets dropped and Algeria goes through instead.
Both teams knew this going into the game because Algeria had already played its final match earlier in the day, and that’s how it stood on that hot summer’s day in Munich, as Germans and Austrians lined up for the starting whistle.
Within 10 minutes, Germany had gone ahead by one goal, and as the match wore on, both teams decided to stop playing. As things stood at 1-0, with the goal difference Austria had over Algeria, both of the protagonists could sail into the next round on a calm breeze. Why risk anything else?
To the world outside, what happened that night was diabolical. A “match-fixing” collusion that was no less disgraceful because there was no prior agreement.
To the teams on the pitch, it was tactical masterstroke. It was their best strategy to ensure a favourable result and gamesmanship of the highest order.
While in the lofty ideals of sport, two teams will always put on their shirts praying for a victory, the reality is that in competition, only the competitive are victorious. And the competitive are governed not by morals, but by self interest.
There’s even a whole section of economics devoted to it: “game theory” (look it up).
FIFA took a crash course in game theory by the time the next World Cup rolled around. They changed the rules so that the final game in all the group stages is played at the same time. This way none of the teams know the other teams in the group’s results, so they can’t play for a predetermined result before the match starts.
The outcome? The night the Algerians have called the Anschluss has never happened again.
They introduced some simple rules and changed the system. When it comes to the rules for drug testing in MMA, these are obviously inadequate.
In the majority of cases, they are only tested the night before a fight and straight after the fight. They only test a fighter’s urine, leaving the panoply of PEDs that can only be detected in the blood untouched. They don’t test for major substances such as growth hormones, peptides and EPO. And they don’t store a fighter’s sample like the IOC does, to check for illegal substances for banned drugs for which they currently have no tests.
As things stand, any fighter can comfortably enjoy all the benefits of PEDs leading up to his signing with the UFC. Then when negotiations for a UFC contract begin, he can cycle off to test clean when he puts pen to paper.
When that’s done, he can go back to training under the influence of any shade of drug right up to the time he signs for his first fight. He can then cycle accordingly, especially when he knows when he’s getting tested, as most fighters do.
He can start with any sort of stimulant, to aid in intensity of training and with managing the weight cut. Some of these drugs leave the body within hours. He can then use a very fast-acting steroid, such as testosterone base, which is in and out of your body within 24 hours, and no one will know.
To top things off, he can then use remarkable PEDs such as growth hormone and EPO all he wants, because these aren’t tested for at all.
There is no question that Olympic-style drug testing is the only solution for PEDs in MMA. But even that’s just the start. Until then, athletes will do everything I outlined above because the incentives to do so are so great.
Because, unless the referee says it’s a foul, it’s not a foul.
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