(That nickname is *really* starting to make sense now…)
Well, it’s safe to say that the recently decided upon Potato Award for “Grossest Mental Image of the Year” is all but a lock now.
As you know, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva was recently suspended for nine months following a positive test for elevated testosterone at Fight Night 33. This came as a surprise to no one, as Silva previously tested positive for Boldenone in 2008, bringing into question how he was granted a TRT TUE in the first place. As was the case with his former steroid test, Silva is doing everything he can to proclaim his innocence in the matter, including suing the doctor who oversaw his therapy.
While anyone with half a brain should conclude that a) there is no way in Hell a 6’4″, 260 pound former steroid user actually needs TRT to survive and b) even if he did, then he probably shouldn’t be fighting for a living, Silva’s manager, Alex Davis, continues to rally for his client, even if it requires him to relay horrifying and embarrassing stories like this one (via MMAFighting):
This is one of the guys that really have authentic technical reasons to be on TRT. He has acromegaly. His pituitary gland overproduces GH (growth hormone) and that unbalances all his other hormones.
When I started managing him, he was actually lactating. He has extremely low testosterone, so he has a real reason to be on TRT.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF NOW, JACK BYRNES?!
So in addition to being a dirty steroid user, Bigfoot Silva is probably the worst person to roll with in the history of ever. Glad we could establish that.
And now that we’ve all finished voiding the contents of our stomachs at the thought of Silva being milked by a farmhand to provide sustenance for the malnourished townspeople of Brasilia, let’s get into the cause of his most recent failed test, which I can assure you was *definitely* not his fault:
He took the instructions wrong, but he did not try to cheat. What happened was, there was a miscommunication with the doctor and he ended up taking injections at the wrong time. He was taking (once) a month then started taking (once) a week. He took one a week before the fight and one at the week of the fight, which wasn’t supposed to. It got mixed up.
So let me get this straight: Silva’s doctor advises him to inject himself once a month, he “takes the instructions wrong” and starts injecting once a week, and the doctor is somehow to blame? Unless the doctor gave Silva instructions handwritten in Taiwanese braille, what could possibly be the miscommunication here?
I’m not saying that Silva is the only one to blame, but considering his past, you’d think he would make an effort to double or triple check the stipulations of his treatment before moving forward with it. There’s a big difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance, and after 8 years in the game, Silva has moved past the point where the former can be used as an excuse, even when dealing with a relatively new science like TRT. Knowledge is progress, and Silva won’t learn a thing until he stops placing the blame for his mistakes on everyone but himself and understands that he might be responsible for what he chooses to inject into his own body.