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 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.

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”.

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.

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.

Case closed.

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”?