Urijah Faber is proud of the face that he’s never cheated, but he wonders what could happen if someone is seriously hurt by a PED user.
When major injuries happen in MMA, it seems to open the eyes of a lot of competitors and fans. While no one is accusing Michael Page of anything untoward, the fact that he was able to fracture Evangelista Santos‘ skull in a Bellator bout earlier this month definitely got a lot of attention. With PED use so prevalent in the sport nowadays, one star fighter is wondering what the consequences might be if a major injury occurred at the hands of a steroid user.
Urijah Faber, as a guest on The MMA Hour, wondered if charges could ever be brought against someone that caused that sort of damage while on PEDs (via MMA Fighting):
“It puts things in perspective when you see Cyborg’s head get crushed, his skull get crushed. The human body, certain individuals have certain abilities. Is there a legal attempted murder if you’re using something like that, if you’re using something potentially using to make yourself a weapon that’s illegal, and you’re going to crush somebody’s skull. It’s a weird thing, and there’s a reason why we have rules in this sport to make sure something like that doesn’t happen.”
Faber know that there are many in the sport that will do whatever they can to get ahead, but says that’s just not in him:
“The cheaters are going to find ways to cheat over and over again,” Faber said. “I’ve never been that guy that prides myself on that. I have a feeling of pride, I’ve never done anything like that and I know that guys, even though they’ve passed drug tests and everything else, they don’t have that same pride, some people. I’m not saying any names, but they know who they are.”
“This is a sport to test yourself and to see where they stand up, and it’s like a chick with fake lips, fake boobs, fake hair, fake teeth, fake tan, when she has a kid, the genetics aren’t going to show any of that stuff. It’s one of those things that you look at, where do you really stand up. I have a lot of pride in being a top contender in this sport, a world champion, I have 14 years in this sport, I’m 37, I feel amazing, and never have cheated. Everyone else? It is what it is.”
While I think Faber is going out on a huge limb with these sorts of statements, it is a subject that is gaining some stream in MMA circles. When your job is to go out there and hurt another person, and you choose to take PEDs, could you be criminally liable if you severely injure that other person? It seems like a slippery slope to me.