It seems as if the UFC is going to let Alistair Overeem fight even though his testosterone levels were 16 times higher than the set limit.
More than likely it will hide behind the athletic commission. Perhaps Dana White will say something like “My hands were tied,” because it is not willing to give up on the biggest fight of the year just because one of the fighters involved was using PEDs.
Imagine if Darren Elkins, who fights on the UFC 146 undercard, had tested positive for a super high testosterone count. He would have been cut, banned, condemned and never allowed to enter the octagon again.
White would have happily thrown the book at him, made an example of him and used him to show that the UFC has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to PEDs. Of course, Elkins isn’t about to make the UFC millions of dollars in pay-per-view income, so taking him off the card would make no difference to the buy rate for UFC 146.
Overeem is irreplaceable and the UFC knows it. The best possible outcome would be if the commission had made some sort of administrative error so that even though everyone knew he was guilty, the fight could still go ahead.
The whole thing stinks. Overeem has applied for a license to fight in Nevada, but has not applied to have the sample he gave tested again. There was also talk that the commission had made a mistake by announcing that he had failed his test before testing the B sample.
How much income does the Nevada State Athletic Commission get from the UFC? Does Keith Kizer get reimbursed for his weekly appearances on the The Ultimate Fighter? At a time when the commission and the UFC appear to be conspiring to allow a fighter to fight who did not just fail a drug test, but flunked it big time, these are legitimate questions.
I wanted to see Alistair Overeem fight Junior Dos Santos as much as anyone, but Mark Hunt is a model professional who is much more deserving of a title shot. Let’s see how this thing plays out, but all signs point to the UFC and the NSAC conspiring to make sure the main event at UFC 146 goes ahead as planned.
Remember that the UFC has the power to cut fighters for just about any reason it wants. Even if the NSAC has made some sort of administrative error that stops it from banning Overeem, there is nothing to stop the UFC from taking action of its own.
The UFC needs to show that it is serious about having fighters who don’t use PEDs, not just fighters who don’t get caught.
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