« WEC 35 (8/3 Las Vegas) card line-up | Home | Kenny Florian’s new Martial Arts Center »
Don’t supposedly do drugs, kids - James Irvin & Justin Levens edition
By Zach Arnold | July 29, 2008
He reportedly tested positive for the pain killers methadone and oxymorphone.
Update: The CSAC just announced that Justin Levens, who fought on the Affliction 7/19 show, failed a drug test for… testing positive for Oxymorphone.
Justin Levens, who was scheduled to compete at the Roy Englebrecht Promotions event sponsored by Affliction on July 19, 2008, has tested positive for Oxymorphone. He has been fined $1,000 and is suspended retroactively from July 19, 2008 through January 15, 2009.
The nanogram cutoff for Oxymorphone is 120 ng/mL. Mr. Levens test level was finalized at 10,141 ng/mL.
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Well, it certainly didn’t help him…but wtf is he taking these types of drugs for? Why is a methadone abuser fighting professionally?
Well, methadone is most known for being used to treat heroin addicts while they’re in rehab, but it’s a painkiller first and foremost, just like oxymorphone.
Oxymorphone is used in both short- and longterm pain therapy, mostly for the treatment of tumor-pain (for cancer patients) and chronic back pains.
That’s some really hard stuff there, not exactly something people take just to get high, so my guess would be that Irvin’s body must be pretty f*d up…
Yikes.
Then again, if I knew that I was about to be stepping in the ring with Silva…
Just seems like some pretty POTENT stuff to be taking in training leading up to a fight and to have in your system when fighting.
You’ve got to think that stuff would severely affect your ability to react etc. in the ring.
My guess is that he uses it as a sleep aid painkiller.
Irrespective of any individual’s test results, there is a major painkiller addition problem throughout MMA.
Just seems like some pretty POTENT stuff to be taking in training leading up to a fight and to have in your system when fighting.
Don Frye used them to pretty great effect in the fight with Shamrock.
Levins abusing pain killers might explain how he went from potential star or at least mid level journeyman to punching bag.
All of this easy to see coming. The painkillers, cortisone abuse, steroids and all the rest. When you saw the sport become a so-called real sport, regulated by the commissions, modeled after boxing, promoting fighters not styles, then you had to know this was where it was going to lead.
To many people, it seems counterintuitive that all these “improvements’ to the sport would make it more dangerous to the athlete’s health, but it has.
Why did James Irvin feel the need to use painkillers? Why did Marcus Davis get two cortisone shots in his shoulder hours before his fight with Swick? Why do athletes feel pressured to use steroids? Would these conditions exist if the UFC had stayed in the “dark ages”?
Rollo, how long do you think it took roided up guys to enter MMA? Really, how long? Are you telling me you believe no one in Brazilian vale tudo was doing them? How about Mark Coleman? Or Ken Shamrock?
See: Kerr, Mark.
Case closed.
“Rollo, how long do you think it took roided up guys to enter MMA? Really, how long? Are you telling me you believe no one in Brazilian vale tudo was doing them? How about Mark Coleman? Or Ken Shamrock?”
Its like eating a candy bar in Brazil. But not here.
Fighters are pressured, by the nature of the sport itself, to be ready to compete at a certain time and date. They are pressured to get surgeries, take pain killers, cortisone, whatever, to insure they can fight. They are trying to make a living from this rather than doing martial arts because they love it. This is what happens.
Its like eating a candy bar in Brazil. But not here.
I am particularly fond of the idea that athletes like amateur wrestlers were unaware as to the effects of anabolic agents, much less never used them. Looking at the list of early stars, how many of them were likely/admitted users of anabolic steroids or painkillers? Kerr? Coleman? Ken Shamrock? Kimo? Don Frye? Even Royce got popped later on. The difference between regulation and no regulation is that you can’t get any positives when you don’t test.
They are trying to make a living from this rather than doing martial arts because they love it. This is what happens.
They do it because it pays money and being an instructor at some local karate McDojo is something they are both woefully unprepared to do and something that pays a whole hell of a lot less.
I’m a bit confused…this pressure exists in every professional (and many amateur) sports.
The need to be ready and able at any and all times exists in many other occupations - doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, construction workers, truckers etc. In short, while it’s obviously a more prevalent and troubling issue in sports, it’s probably pretty reflective of societal pressures to keep the pedal to the metal and “get results”.
D. Capitated,
I contend that i was easier to compete in the sport back then without the use of harmful drugs or procedures. I knew an early fighter who used steroid, but only because the lighter weight classes were just beginning to take shape and he had to compete at HW.
“’m a bit confused…this pressure exists in every professional (and many amateur) sports.”
Yes. And now it exists in MMA. Big time, spectator sports are not a healthy pursuit.
I wonder if the UFC are going to look after him for not pulling out and ruining their spoiler show.
I contend that i was easier to compete in the sport back then without the use of harmful drugs or procedures. I knew an early fighter who used steroid, but only because the lighter weight classes were just beginning to take shape and he had to compete at HW.
The number of active fighters was in the double digits too. I’m not sure that it was healthier for the combatants for the Fred Ettishes of the world to be in a cage fight with no rules against kickboxers and grapplers in a scenario where stoppages seemed to take forever.
I used to be a opiate abuser. One thing that you cold do when high was work out. I actually would get a sort of energy rush and you did not feel the pain of training. To be sure I was never that serious about training,, but I did notice it being useful (on balance totaly not useful but in the moment) to work out high. I also knew a semi pro boxer who did the same thing.