Written by Rick Vann, July 12, 2016, at 8:18 p.m.
Mixed martial artist Jon Jones’s disqualification from UFC 200 is only the most recent in a long trend of fighters testing positive for illegal substances in their body. Not long before him, we saw Welterweight Champion BJ Penn handed a six-month suspension.
Names like Mirko Cro Cop and Frank Mir all came up positive before that. The legendary Royce Gracie himself popped hot for having the anabolic steroid Nandrolone in his blood back in 2007, proving even the greatest of the sport are not immune.
The UFC’s PED Problem
The list, seemingly, goes on and on, and includes a good number of the big names in the field. But what exactly is it that is driving so many athletes towards banned performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)? We’re taking a look at the issue.
In a 2015 interview, former US Army Ranger-turned-professional fighter Tim Kennedy called the rampant abuse of PEDs in the sport a “crazy problem” before grimly stating, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
But how much worse can it get? With seemingly every top fighter in the sport partaking in the practice, or at least suspected of it, it might seem that the only shot at making it up the ranks of the MMA world is to juice up.
If the UFC, Bellator, and the other top promotions want to have any hopes of stomping out the problem before it spirals any further out of control than it is they need to act, and act now.
According to Kennedy, at least “60 to 70 percent” of the fighters getting into the cage right now are on a PED of some kind, and he fears that unless action is taken soon, someone could end up dead.
Joe Rogan backed up the point, stating, “The UFC and the MMA in general is a steroid epidemic,” shortly after Anderson Silva was busted for use. So, with so many people using PEDs over the years, is there any way to figure out why?
Why Does it Keep Happening?
Some people claim to have the answer. Mixed martial arts trainer Eric Wong thinks that the reasoning might simply come down to money. To him “when it comes to the MMA, where one fight can make the difference between signing a six figure contract or getting canned…the pressure to win causes many fighters to either dabble in or go whole hog at improving their game with PEDs.”
Perhaps another reason could be the relatively light sentencing that has traditionally been handed down to fighters who are caught. In a simple game of risk versus reward, the reward of going undetected and winning a fight can severely outweigh the risk of ever getting caught.
When Royce Gracie was found with Nandrolone in his system, he was given a $2,500 fine and a less than one year suspension.
Anderson Silva was still able to keep 70 percent of his purse when he was discovered to be positive for anabolic steroids after beating Nate Diaz. He only forfeited a portion of his earnings, and got a year’s suspension. A year might sound like a lot on paper, but when you consider that Silva only had two fights in all of 2013, his last active year before the suspension, the punishment seems a lot more like a slap on the wrist.
Not only this, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that the UFC put any real effort at all into combating the plague they are facing. The league partnered up with the US Anti-Doping Agency only last June.
Conditions before that were almost laughable. Ronda Rousey made comments on the subject shortly after the new partnership was rolled out, saying that she was shocked because “it was so easy to cheat.”
With the guidelines as lax as they were, it is entirely possible that fighters just got too used to sneaking in drugs under the radar. Now it has become a habit that they simply can’t break, or one that they refuse to break for fear of losing their next match.
What Can the UFC Do to Stop PED Use?
If the UFC and other fight promotions want to get serious about drug use in their ranks, they need to hit the fighters where it hurts: right in their pockets. As it is now, the risk is simply not great enough to serve as a deterrent to usage.
When Alex Rodriguez was caught with PEDs in his system, he was forced to sit out 162 and forfeited over $20 million. Other athletes have lost their chances at Hall of Fame induction because of the issue.
Only when the UFC and others begin to take the subject as seriously as other sports have can we hope to see any real change in the now rampant abuse we see today. Until then, we can expect to continue to see our favorites fail their tests, and continue to fall disappointed in just how dirty the sport has become.
The partnering with the USADA is certainly a step in the right direction, but it looks like it will be a long, nasty battle before the issue of PEDs can be one relegated to history’s graveyard. At least where the field of mixed martial arts is concerned.