On Wednesday, the UFC announced what may be potentially sweeping changes to its performance-enhancing-drug policy. UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, President Dana White and head legal counsel Lawrence Epstein addressed the media from a ballroom at the Red Rock Casino Resort to announce the changes, which follow a string of high-profile test debacles, including the surprising failure of the legendary Anderson Silva.
What does it all mean? Does it indicate substantive change? Or is it just for show? Bleacher Report’s version of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, lead writers Jonathan Snowden and Jeremy Botter, weigh in with their initial thoughts on what may end up being one of the most important decisions in recent MMA history.
Jonathan: Well Jeremy, the UFC held a press conference Wednesday to announce that it is, indeed, serious about eliminating the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs. Good cop Lorenzo Fertitta, calm, collected and professional, set forth what seems likely to be a sweeping program that will change the lives of his fighters forever. Bad cop Dana White yelled at the media and announced a title fight.
It certainly wasn’t boring.
It also wasn’t, once the smoke cleared and the mirrors were put back in storage, super informative. There were scant details provided. The future, though potentially quite bright, can be viewed only through the murky haze of doubt.
Jeremy: Perhaps it was because I was in the room and had the benefit of being able to speak to some of the actual folks who will end up making these changes happen on the ground level, but I came away from yesterday’s news conference thinking two things:
1. This sport just changed, drastically.
2. That the UFC went above and beyond even what I expected it to do.
We all know four-year bans for first-time offenders won’t end up being the actual punishment handed down once the UFC partners with an outside doping agency. It will be two years, which is still a major deterrent and also an improvement over what it currently has. And we don’t know a lot of the specifics about the testing because it hasn’t picked an outside agency to handle it yet, though I would bet my last dollar that it will be the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
I think we got this news conference on Monday because the UFC wanted to send a message, not just to the public at large, but also to its fighters. It said, “hey, you have approximately six months to get all of the crap you’re currently taking out of your system. If you fail after July 1, that’s your fault. We’re giving you the time you need to get clean.”
The fact that White was relegated to a sideshow, the guy who said a few things in his usual style, while the rest of the actual business was handled by Fertitta and Ike Epstein? That says a lot. That says they mean business, and this isn’t just another deal where Dana says words and then goes back later and claims he didn’t say those words. When big daddy Lorenzo alights from his second-floor ruling space in the Zuffa office, you know business, in the immortal words of my friend Jim Ross, just picked up.
Jonathan: The truth is, the UFC has been all over the map on this issue. The intensity of its press conferences doesn’t impress me. I’ll be impressed with the intensity of its testing—should it actually occur.
After its on-again, off-again love affair with testosterone replacement therapy, its inconsistent approach to testing and the way it’s consistently given drug cheats opportunities, to include title shots, immediately upon their return from suspension, UFC has zero credibility in this space. It has to earn it.
We’ll see what happens. But it’s certainly not in the UFC’s interest to cancel fights and suspend top fighters. And with it running its own testing, there will always be questions about just how real its testing is.
This might be a gold-standard program. But it might be a pro wrestling program, a public relations ploy the promotion certainly hopes the athletes don’t take too seriously. We don’t really know—because the most interesting part of the UFC’s announcement was the complete lack of specifics provided.
Jeremy: I think you saw a lack of specifics because it put it together in a hurry. It abandoned the testing program it’d planned, and then Anderson Silva went and took all of the drugs in the world, which forced it to admit it had a problem and that it probably needed to take a strong stance.
And I do think it was a strong stance, despite the lack of specifics. Fertitta even admitted on two occasions that things were going to get worse before they got better. He noted that Joe Silva and Sean Shelby would have to be more creative matchmakers, and that if they lose main event or championship fights because of the new policies they’re putting into places, well, they lose main events.
That doesn’t sound like lip service to me. It sounds like someone who knows his company is about to take a hit. And believe me when I say that the UFC will take a major hit once this policy goes into effect, if the eventual policy is indeed identical to what Fertitta discussed on Wednesday morning.
But you are right in saying it has to earn our trust on this issue. It does. If it puts this program in place, and if it is open and honest about results and failures, it will go a long way toward building that trust.
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