Those of you who have been reading my stuff for awhile know that I’m no fan of performance-enhancing drugs in MMA. With a bevy of recent high-profile failures, it’s becoming obvious that we’re nearing epidemic status.
It’s long past time for the UFC to get in front of the problem, but how?
As I’ve noted in previous posts here at Caged In, the institution of true, random testing would greatly curtail the usage of steroids and other PED.
Would it completely eliminate the problem? No.
In any athletic competition, there will always be guys willing to take the risk of failing in order to gain a performance advantage over his opponent. It’s just the way things are. We still see drug failures in Major League Baseball and the National Football League, and random testing is included as part of their Collective Bargaining Agreements.
No, it wouldn’t completely eliminate the issue. But if a fighter who’s considering taking stanozolol or testosterone realizes a UFC drug tester could, at any given moment, walk through the doors of his gym to collect a urine sample, you think it wouldn’t give him pause? It absolutely would.
Kevin Iole at Yahoo! takes things one step further, proposing heavier punishment for repeat offenders:
“The UFC should require PED abusers to agree to three random tests a year, plus tests within a week of signing a contract for a fight, one midway through camp and another post-fight.
“Even with such thorough testing, though, some fighters will beat it. Still, such a plan will greatly reduce the incidence of use and make the sport safer for those who choose to compete while clean.
“The policy should also include clear terms for future failed tests. Another positive test should mean a two-year ban from the UFC. One after that should result in a permanent ban.”
I love this idea. Absolutely, positively love it.
If the fear of random testing—and a full year spent on the shelf without earning money—won’t dissuade a fighter from taking PED to gain an edge on his opponent, then the idea that a failed test could effectively end his career in the UFC would almost certainly do so.
There will always be fighters like Alistair Overeem. He’s a guy who has been surrounded by a cloud of steroid suspicion for his entire career.
Overeem comes into the UFC and immediately gets involved in the November debacle surrounding a urine test, then fails a random test with highly elevated testosterone levels. From all accounts, it looks as though Overeem is going to attempt to use testosterone replacement therapy as a loophole to explain his steroid failure.
And you know what the crazy thing is? He’s probably going to get away with it. And that’s not a good thing, even though I want to see him fight Junior dos Santos just as much as the rest of the world does.
I understand the UFC’s position on the institution of a random drug-testing program. They don’t want to do it because it would be costly. It would be a giant hassle to issue two or three unannounced tests per year to the hundreds of fighters they have under contract with the UFC and Strikeforce.
But the thought of MMA coming under heavy public scrutiny due to rampant steroid usage is far worse. Zuffa has done wonders in taking the sport from the underground to the tip of the mainstream iceberg. It would be a shame to see even a fraction of that work undone by a drug scandal.
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