(Always the center of controversy, Aldo caused a major stir up when he triumphantly waved a “White Pride Worldwide” flag after his victory at UFC 142. / Photo via AP)
Although the figures have yet to be made public, early estimates indicate that UFC 163: Aldo vs. Korean Zombiepulled in terrible pay-per-view numbers, to put it nicely. It makes sense, given what the card was facing: A main event featuring one of the lower weight classes (one that was downgraded due to injury, no less), a main card lacking anything resembling star power or intriguing matchups, a bigger PPV at the end of the month, etc. Hell, even Dana White was too caught up in the media whirlwind that was the UFC World Tour to attend the event.
The reason we say all this is because in a recent interview with Tatame, the normally reserved featherweight kingpin not only came out in support of TRT and stated that he plans on using it in the future, but insinuated that beloved MMA icon Randy “The Natural” Couture was probably on steroids at one point or another during his career.
I don’t see the problem with using TRT. Everybody uses [steroids], from the champion to the newcomer. I believe we [from Nova Uniao] are the only ones that don’t do that, because Andre (Pederneiras) was always against steroids. I think it’s wrong to criticize someone who came forward and said they take TRT.
(Always the center of controversy, Aldo caused a major stir up when he triumphantly waved a ”White Pride Worldwide” flag after his victory at UFC 142. / Photo via AP)
Although the figures have yet to be made public, early estimates indicate that UFC 163: Aldo vs. Korean Zombiepulled in terrible pay-per-view numbers, to put it nicely. It makes sense, given what the card was facing: A main event featuring one of the lower weight classes (one that was downgraded due to injury, no less), a main card lacking anything resembling star power or intriguing matchups, a bigger PPV at the end of the month, etc. Hell, even Dana White was too caught up in the media whirlwind that was the UFC World Tour to attend the event.
The reason we say all this is because in a recent interview with Tatame, the normally reserved featherweight kingpin not only came out in support of TRT and stated that he plans on using it in the future, but insinuated that beloved MMA icon Randy “The Natural” Couture was probably on steroids at one point or another during his career.
I don’t see the problem with using TRT. Everybody uses [steroids], from the champion to the newcomer. I believe we [from Nova Uniao] are the only ones that don’t do that, because Andre (Pederneiras) was always against steroids. I think it’s wrong to criticize someone who came forward and said they take TRT.
Right off the bat, Aldo is tap dancing on thin ice here. Claiming that everyone in MMA from the champion to the newcomer uses steroids, then immediately declaring that your camp is the only one that doesn’t is not only hypocritical, it’s downright suspicious. Whether Aldo realized it or not, making this kind of statement is sure to draw unwanted attention to Nova Uniao that could come back to bite them in the ass down the line. Because obviously everyone is going to assume that the guys doing steroids are the ones pointing their fingers at everyone else when completely unprompted.
“I would just like to thank the Academy for this award while also reminding everyone that I am the only actress in Hollywood to have never whored out my body to a director for a part. Never ever. Helen Mirren, on the other hand…”(*yanked offstage by cane*)
Likely figuring that he had already pissed off a good percentage of the MMA community with his previous statement, Aldo then started naming names like he was a sexual predator being interrogated by detective Elliot Stabler:
Americans always used that. Randy Couture fought until he was 50, and you say he was clean? If the doctors prescribe you and you’re on the limits, OK, I see no problem. If I need that one day, I will use TRT too.
Woah woah woah, Jose. Let’s not bring nationalities into the equation, because we both know that Brazilians have been the forerunners in shady, deceptive MMA practices since the Vale Tudo days — just ask Mark Coleman. Secondly, Randy Couture is a saint! A saint who just happens to be banned from attending UFC events forevermore. You don’t just go around throwing accusations all willy nilly without the slightest bit of evidence. That’s our job, dammit, and you’re making it look easier than it really is.
If you follow baseball, you may already be aware of the ongoing Biogenesis scandal. In short, an ex-employee of a Miami-based steroid clinic leaked hundreds of pages of documents from the clinic to the Miami New Times earlier this year, identifying several big-name MLB players as clients. The Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun has already been suspended for the rest of this season, and A-Rod’s suspension is imminent. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), Biogenesis’s shady operation wasn’t limited to baseball. From a new ESPN report:
The man who turned the Biogenesis clinic from a quiet investigation in Miami into a national scandal says there are at least a dozen more athletes whose names haven’t been exposed and that they come from across the sports world.
Porter Fischer, the former Biogenesis of Miami clinic employee who turned boxes of documents over to the Miami New Times last year, declined to name the athletes. But in his first television interview, Fischer told “Outside the Lines” that numerous sports had at least one athlete who received performance-enhancing drugs from clinic founder Tony Bosch.
“This isn’t a 2013 thing or a 2012 thing; some of these people have been on the books since 2009,” Fischer said.
Fischer said he and associates have identified athletes from the NBA, NCAA, professional boxing, tennis and MMA, in addition to other professional baseball players who have not yet been identified. As far as he knows, Fischer said, Bosch had no clients from the NFL or NHL…
If you follow baseball, you may already be aware of the ongoing Biogenesis scandal. In short, an ex-employee of a Miami-based steroid clinic leaked hundreds of pages of documents from the clinic to the Miami New Times earlier this year, identifying several big-name MLB players as clients. The Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun has already been suspended for the rest of this season, and A-Rod’s suspension is imminent. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), Biogenesis’s shady operation wasn’t limited to baseball. From a new ESPN report:
The man who turned the Biogenesis clinic from a quiet investigation in Miami into a national scandal says there are at least a dozen more athletes whose names haven’t been exposed and that they come from across the sports world.
Porter Fischer, the former Biogenesis of Miami clinic employee who turned boxes of documents over to the Miami New Times last year, declined to name the athletes. But in his first television interview, Fischer told “Outside the Lines” that numerous sports had at least one athlete who received performance-enhancing drugs from clinic founder Tony Bosch.
“This isn’t a 2013 thing or a 2012 thing; some of these people have been on the books since 2009,” Fischer said.
Fischer said he and associates have identified athletes from the NBA, NCAA, professional boxing, tennis and MMA, in addition to other professional baseball players who have not yet been identified. As far as he knows, Fischer said, Bosch had no clients from the NFL or NHL…
The athletes not yet publicly named come from the documents Fischer took from the clinic, documents he said another employee asked him to take for safekeeping. The number of athletes involved with the clinic, based on what he saw and heard during his time with Biogenesis, is far more than people realize, he said.
“In just the four years that I know, it’s got to be well over a hundred, easy,” he said. “It’s almost scary to think about how many people have gone through [Bosch’s treatments] and how long he’s gotten away with this.”
Bosch has been cooperating with MLB for more than a month, providing what sources have said are extensive records of his connection to 20 to 25 players.
Speaking purely speculatively, I doubt that anyone involved with a high end, designer drug outfit like Biogenesis is some low or mid-card dwelling fringe UFC talent. The costs involved here are likely so high that it would seem likely that anyone involved would be much more high profile than that.
So…Miami-based clinic. High-profile MMA fighters with money to spend. Hmm. To avoid another unnecessary lawsuit, we’re not going to connect the dots for you, but there are a few fighters who immediately come to mind. We’ll update you when these fighters are named. And if that happens, the UFC will get the most unwelcome kind of mainstream media attention. Brace yourselves for the incoming shitstorm.
And as for Bonnar? Well, the normally outspoken light heavyweight has been similarly silent — likely due in part to the birth of his son — since exiting the UFC on such terrible terms. Until now, that is.
For the first time since the fight itself, Bonnar addressed the factors that led him to get popped for Drostanolone following UFC 153 during an interview on The MMA Hour(Author’s note: WHAT ABOUT US, STEPHAN?). Although Stephan took full responsibility for his actions, his reasoning for why he fell back on the juice yet again didn’t exactly absolve him of all guilt (via MMAFighting):
…after being shelved for months and being advised to retire by UFC president Dana White, he had given up hope of closing out his career with a major fight…But then, out of the blue, the semi-retired fighter got the phone call he never thought was coming. After about 10 months without a fight, he was being asked to compete against the the sport’s pound-for-pound king, Anderson Silva.
Believe it or not, there are some therapeutic uses to some of the banned substances,” he said. “Bottom line, I wanted to get my strength back. I was very weak. My body didn’t feel good, my joints didn’t feel good. That was my goal.
And as for Bonnar? Well, the normally outspoken light heavyweight has been similarly silent — likely due in part to the birth of his son — since exiting the UFC on such terrible terms. Until now, that is.
For the first time since the fight itself, Bonnar addressed the factors that led him to get popped for Drostanolone following UFC 153 during an interview on The MMA Hour(Author’s note: WHAT ABOUT US, STEPHAN?). Although Stephan took full responsibility for his actions, his reasoning for why he fell back on the juice yet again didn’t exactly absolve him of all guilt (via MMAFighting):
…after being shelved for months and being advised to retire by UFC president Dana White, he had given up hope of closing out his career with a major fight…But then, out of the blue, the semi-retired fighter got the phone call he never thought was coming. After about 10 months without a fight, he was being asked to compete against the the sport’s pound-for-pound king, Anderson Silva.
Believe it or not, there are some therapeutic uses to some of the banned substances,” he said. “Bottom line, I wanted to get my strength back. I was very weak. My body didn’t feel good, my joints didn’t feel good. That was my goal.
According to Bonnar, the hardest thing he has had to deal with since leaving the UFC in disgrace hasn’t been the dirty looks or vehemently-worded tweets from fans, but the distance that has grown between himself and the organization he called home for the majority of his MMA career:
You know, there’s no way if I thought there was any possibility of it showing up, that I would have taken the fight. I finally get the opportunity I’ve been begging for in vain for so long. I thought I’d go out there and put on a better fight, but then stuff like this happens. It’s like I came to his house and took a s— on his carpet. It just kills me. I’m like, ‘Come on, Dana, give me this opportunity,’ and then I make him look like that. I’m really sorry.
The only question that remains is: Where does Bonnar go from here? Well, he’s come up with a simple solution for that:
I feel the best thing for me to do is to respectfully piss off. It’s not to sit there and go, ‘Oh, come on Dana, give me another chance.’ I f—– up and I’ll put my tail between my legs and leave you guys alone for a while.
Farewell for now, dearest Stephan. At least we’ll always have these memories…
(“I don’t really get what this whole TRT debate is even about, Vitor. As if my thyme-roasted tilapia is the sole ingredient behind your success.”)
Although testosterone replacement therapy hasn’t been a topic of debate for all that long in the MMA world, it has more than worn out its welcome with the sport’s fans and more than a few fighters to boot. It’s been criticized so much that even Dana White has flip-flopped on the issue, now vowing to “test the shit” out of fighters on TRT out of fear that they will abuse it. The general dislike for this newfangled “therapy” is only intensified when it involves past steroid abusers like say Vitor Belfort, who tested positive for 4-Hydroxytestosterone following his Pride 32 loss to Dan Henderson in 2006.
As you surely recall, Belfort was granted a TUE for TRT prior to his UFC on FX 7 victory over Michael Bisping. Although most of us were willing to give “The Phenom” a pass for that event because he was able to shut up Michael Bisping for a minute or two, it looks like NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer will not be so lenient should Belfort and past dopers like him fight in Nevada any time soon:
I don’t see Vitor Belfort getting a TRT exemption from us. I really don’t and I feel kind of bad for him in some ways because if he has learned from his mistakes and now he’s trying to do it the right way and his levels are low with the treatment good for him and I hope he is doing that.
(“I don’t really get what this whole TRT debate is even about, Vitor. As if my thyme-roasted tilapia is the sole ingredient behind your success.”)
Although testosterone replacement therapy hasn’t been a topic of debate for all that long in the MMA world, it has more than worn out its welcome with the sport’s fans and more than a few fighters to boot. It’s been criticized so much that even Dana White has flip-flopped on the issue, now vowing to “test the shit” out of fighters on TRT out of fear that they will abuse it. The general dislike for this newfangled “therapy” is only intensified when it involves past steroid abusers like say Vitor Belfort, who tested positive for 4-Hydroxytestosterone following his Pride 32 loss to Dan Henderson in 2006.
As you surely recall, Belfort was granted a TUE for TRT prior to his UFC on FX 7 victory over Michael Bisping. Although most of us were willing to give “The Phenom” a pass for that event because he was able to shut up Michael Bisping for a minute or two, it looks like NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer will not be so lenient should Belfort and past dopers like him fight in Nevada any time soon:
I don’t see Vitor Belfort getting a TRT exemption from us. I really don’t and I feel kind of bad for him in some ways because if he has learned from his mistakes and now he’s trying to do it the right way and his levels are low with the treatment good for him and I hope he is doing that.
In May of last year, Kizer likened TRT to “the new Viagra” amongst combat sports athletes upon granting Chael Sonnen a TUE for UFC 148. But before you jump on Kizer for playing both sides of the fence by granting Sonnen a TRT exemption, you should first understand the difference between past users like Belfort and guys like Sonnen, at least according to Kizer:
He handled himself well and some people handle themselves well. Some guys are going to have to jump through some additional hoops, but even Chael wasn’t a prior steroid (user) that could have caused the deficiency like Vitor.
Whether or not Kizer stands by his word remains to be seen, especially considering that Belfort hasn’t fought in Nevada since getting front-kicked into a living death by Anderson Silva at UFC 126. At the same time, it’s great to see guys like Kizer and Dana White finally labeling TRT for what it really is: legalized cheating. Now if only we could get them to ease off on the whole “marijuana” thing. It’s saving our annoying children’s lives, dammit!
(Unfortunately for him, Bonnar’s sad puppy face failed to inspire any sympathy.)
Not that it really matters given his retirement from the sport and all, but according to the UFC’s VP of regulatory affairs, Marc Ratner, the verdict has already been turned in for Stephan Bonnar, who pissed hot after his UFC 153 loss to Anderson Silva. “The American Psycho” will receive a one year suspension as a result of his positive test for Drostanolone. But again, being that Bonnar pulled a Richard Nixon and got the fuck out of office — thereby negating the weight of all possible punishments — we’re sure he won’t be planning on putting up much of a fight. The fact that he has yet to even make a statement regarding his test further solidifies this theory.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Also according to Ratner, the punishment in the case of Dave Herman‘s second failed test for marijuana will not only be a suspension of “months,” but could require him to enter a rehab facility as well.
(Unfortunately for him, Bonnar’s sad puppy face failed to inspire any sympathy.)
Not that it really matters given his retirement from the sport and all, but according to the UFC’s VP of regulatory affairs, Marc Ratner, the verdict has already been turned in for Stephan Bonnar, who pissed hot after his UFC 153 loss to Anderson Silva. “The American Psycho” will receive a one year suspension as a result of his positive test for Drostanolone. But again, being that Bonnar pulled a Richard Nixon and got the fuck out of office — thereby negating the weight of all possible punishments — we’re sure he won’t be planning on putting up much of a fight. The fact that he has yet to even make a statement regarding his test further solidifies this theory.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Also according to Ratner, the punishment in the case of Dave Herman‘s second failed test for marijuana will not only be a suspension of “months,” but could require him to enter a rehab facility as well.
Other sports have a difference between PEDs and recreational drugs.
We feel very strongly that there’s a big difference between PED’s [performance-enhancing drugs] and marijuana. We think the commissions do a good job with PEDs, but we think with marijuana there should be some form of rehab involved, going through that kind of process and learning about it.
Let’s just back the judgmental truck up for a second, Mr. Ratner. If you’re one of the ten remaining people on this earth who thinks that the general public needs to be made more aware of any possible effects/dangers of marijuana, fine. That is clearly not the case for 90% of today’s youth, let alone a grown ass man like Dave Herman, but this is America, and although we may not agree with your assessment, we will defend to the death your right to say it.
But if you are going to declare that a fighter should have to undergo more treatment for a positive marijuana test than for a positive steroid-related test – in a combat sport, mind you — then it really calls to question your judgement as a former executive director of one of the athletic commission’s that are doing such a “good job” controlling steroid usage. While one of the substances you just mentioned allows a person to do little more than make it through a Taco Bell mexican pizza without vomiting, the other has a side effect that includes the word “rage” in the phrase. And you think fighters need to be made more aware of the possible dangers the former could lead to?
I don’t even know anymore. You Taters can take this one.
