« Bizarre — Fox Sports touts Brian Cushing for Jay Glazer MMAAthletics show | Home | Would changing major UFC non-title fights from 3 to 5 rounds eliminate the need for interim titles? »
What you need to know about this Wednesday’s Nevada State Athletic Commission meeting about drug testing (updated with Dave Meltzer commentary)
By Zach Arnold | June 8, 2010
Noted on the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s agenda list for this Wednesday’s meeting in Las Vegas is the following:
14. **Review of Protocol for Steroid/Drug Testing and Disciplinary Matters.
For those of you who are readers in the Las Vegas area or those of you who are in the media in Las Vegas area, you should definitely check out Wednesday’s meeting. Here is the information from the agenda sheet on the meeting:
A duly authorized telephone meeting of the Nevada State Athletic Commission will be held on Wednesday, June 9, 2010, at 2:00 p.m. at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building, 555 East Washington Avenue, Suite 4500, Fourth Floor, Las Vegas, NV 89101.
(If you really need an excuse to check out the meeting, use this one — the referees for the Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin fight will be determined on Wednesday.)
Recently, Eddie Goldman did an hour-long interview with Dr. Margaret Goodman which I would highly recommend that you download and listen to. They discuss the upcoming meeting in Las Vegas along with what the current state of drug testing is, how rampant Growth Hormone usage is in boxing and MMA (via mark doctors), and where things go from here. I thought the most interesting part of the interview was how open Dr. Goodman was about Keith Kizer, someone who I have ripped several times publicly on this site.
In full-page mode, I have written a transcript of the opening 30-minutes of the radio show discussion. I put in a couple of hours transcribing it, so hopefully you find some news and discussion value from the text. There’s so many topics touched upon in the transcript that you should read it and absorb it and then come back and read it again and comment on it as part of our Sunday conversation.
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “If you’re a person who’s following what’s going on in the regulation of the combat sports, you may know that on Wednesday, June 9th, the Nevada State Athletic Commission will be having another meeting which will be open to the public at 2 PM Pacific time in Las Vegas with a very interesting agenda. If you look at their new business, some of it’s seems pretty straight-forward, requests by athletes that are over 35 years old for licenses, the naming of officials, a number of promotions in combat sports want to confirm dates in Las Vegas, a number of boxing club organizations want to get some compensation because they took some of their amateur fighters and officials to different events, and at the very end there’s an item without any elaboration, Item 14, Review of Protocol for Steroid Drug Testing and Disciplinary Matters. We’re going to discuss that item because even though it’s not explained that could be the one that people discuss the most afterwards or maybe not, depending on if they decide to do anything. We have on the line with us a person who knows all about these and all about the Nevada State Athletic Commission because she was not only a Chief Ringside Physician for many, many years, but also the former head of their medical advisory board, still a neurologist in Las Vegas and of course our medical correspondent on No Holds Barred, Dr. Margaret Goodman. And welcome back to the show.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “We’re glad you could be with us. Tell us about what’s going on because the issue of drug testing and particularly the discussion about the need to adopt protocols of the World Anti-Doping Agency in the combat sports in particularly boxing and MMA in North America has been something which has had a huge amount of discussion and it appears that’s not going away any time soon. What do you see the Nevada Commission is attempting to do or whoever you put this on the agenda is attempting to do with their drug testing since their drug testing is nowhere near what’s done in the Olympic movement.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Well, it’s a really interesting topic as I’m sure that everyone’s listening to this knows. I mean, there’s been just so much publicity and so much discussion among different agencies including regulatory agencies and in the press and among fighters as far as what kind of drug testing should be done before or after a fight, you know should there be random unannounced testing and as you know and you just mentioned, you know very little is being done around the country. Nevada was the first to implement steroid testing or testing for anabolic steroids and masking agents when Dr. (Flip) Homansky was with the commission and at that time, everyone really thought it was a non-issue and that wouldn’t catch anybody and for a long time they didn’t. The commission subsequently expanded their testing to include more athletes and of course more athletes were found positive but as has been discussed in the recent press and also even brought up by Floyd Mayweather was that without unannounced, random testing and more thorough testing involving substances such as EPO, a naturally occurring hormone that increases your red blood cells and other substances that like Human Growth Hormone and a whole bunch of other anabolic steroids that are very rarely tested for in the routine drug screening, nobody really knows what anybody’s taking but yet everyone knows and it’s the subculture that talks about you know all these drugs are rampant in the sport yet nobody’s testing for them. So, it’s going to be very interesting, there’s been obviously a great deal of pressure on not just the Nevada commission but boxing in general and hopefully it will leak over to MMA, it really should because that sport is governed and regulated by the same commissions but it needs to be discussed and so obviously the press… in dealing with interviews from the Nevada commission, mainly their executive director (Keith Kizer) have been kind of confusing. You know, at first they were saying, well our testing is adequate and then you had with the Mosley/Mayweather fight you saw the United States Anti-Doping Agency come in and expand the testing under the requests of the two fighters competing, predominately Floyd Mayweather and so the topic remained open, you know, what is the commission do? Do they you know just let this go on and let fighters request it? But it really, really shined a light on the fact that the testing in states like Nevada are just completely inadequate, so therefore you have a hearing and I believe that the hearing will include you know probably open discussion from other individuals that have interest like from USADA people like Travis Tygart, the President I believe of USADA, and who knows what other individuals will come forward. Exactly what the agenda will be for that particular item, I don’t really know and it will be interesting to find out, you know will the commission just want to kind of lay it out on the table and say we’re going to take it under advisement and maybe put together a subcommittee to determine what testing should we do, what testing is not feasible, who should underdog this testing, who’s going to pay for it, you know all those different issues need to be discussed.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “Do you get the feeling that the commission might be changing it’s tune because what Keith Kizer was quoted as saying very definitely is, ‘we find out everything that we need to find out through urine testing’ and that just is plainly not true, that’s just idiotic.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Well, and you know that’s the whole point is that you know there’s only so many times that you can just say, you know everything we do is great and just cover your eyes and cover your ears and it’ll be like the Three Blind Mice and just you know not pay attention. But you know it’s getting to the point where you can’t avoid it any longer, otherwise it makes people like the Nevada Athletic Commission look silly you know and I do believe that you know they have people there that care and want to do the right thing but the question is you know it’s a very complicated issue. You know, I think that if you look at some of the things that have been printed from individuals quoting people like Victor Conte who’s probably one of the most knowledgeable people there is as far as illegal performance enhancers.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “He was Mr. BALCO and involved in it.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Right, and his point has been which is a very valid point is there’s certainly many, many ways that the system can be beat. So, obviously nobody wants to change a process that’s in that place unless they’re going to the right process so I would assume that this hearing will be an open discussion but you know not only for the commissioners to give their opinions and it is also a voting item on the agenda so they will make some kind of recommendation as to how to proceed but it’ll open the discussion and I know that USADA is very interested to come in and discuss you know how they could handle this. I think that you know number one is the commission supposed to handle it themselves? Obviously they want to keep everything within themselves to function and it’s less complicated but it requires more manpower, it requires a lot of time, it requires finances you know to find out you know who are you going to test, where are those athletes, how do you go through that process and organizations like USADA and WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, have been handling these things for year and so they know how to implement this. So, obviously, if anything is going to be done and if it was me I would try to turn it over to an organization like that. But I have a feeling this may be pre-mature because when you have people like Victor Conte appropriately coming out, you know, saying most of the athletes you’re not going to catch unless you do this, this, and this, and even agencies such as USADA are missing athletes, it’s very hard for a commission to say, well we’re going to spend you know force fighters or promoters or whoever to spend thousand of dollars conducting this new type of testing when they don’t you know when the yield of actually improving what they have now in place may not be strong enough, so I can see both sides for not proceeding ahead. But, what they’re doing now is something that obviously should have been done months and months ago in understanding that this is a fluid process. You know, back when I was there, it seemed adequate what we were doing and truthfully it just wasn’t but we weren’t aware of it to that degree but as the last couple of years have gone, obviously you know it doesn’t you don’t have to be slapped in the face to recognize that you’re not catching enough athletes and you’re not creating a deterrent for them. They’re slipping by. It’s unfair fights. It’s possibly you know a huge danger to the opponent if they’re not you know if their opponent is using something like this, a performance-enhancing drug so you know it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the testing needs to be changed. The question is which direction do you go and when. I mean I can tell you what I would do, but it would be interesting to see how they proceed. And then you have unfortunately or fortunately the way it is any of kind of commission, you know there’s a PR aspect to it. You know you want to look like you’re on top of the problem and like you said you know Keith Kizer’s comments just couldn’t continue to go in that direction and if you look at some of his more recent comments and quotes, he’s kind of going ‘well you know this is interesting, we’re going to look into this’ you know there was no way you could just continue saying ‘well we’re just going to ignore it and do what we’re doing’ so it’ll be interesting. The approach that I would assume that they would have involvement from the medical advisory board, they may then turn the issue over to the medical advisory board to hold another special hearing that says you know they’re physicians and get experts on the issue and work with USADA and whoever else they want to work with, someone like Don Catlin at UCLA who’s with an anti-doping lab and bring all those experts together to kind of figure out you know should we change our testing at this point in time? Should it be something we look into for the future? How do we do this? How do we implement it? Who’s going to pay for it, which is obviously one of the biggest issues, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes. I mean I’m glad that they’re doing this, I wish it would have been done a couple of years ago but you know once again it’s a fluid process, it’s an education, there’s a lot of things that commissions have to deal with and you know for good or for bad Floyd Mayweather threw this issue out and the press ran with it and now commissions really do have to deal with it.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “You know you mentioned Conte’s statements that they’re not going to catch everyone. And you can make that argument about just about anything. I mean, there are laws on the books against you know murder and rape and this, that, and the other thing, and not everybody is caught and certainly not all of those are prevented, but that’s not an argument for looking the other way.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “No and I totally agree and I would hate to see that used as an argument. And I don’t think it’s need to be because I think that you know number one it’s always important for whoever it is whether you’re an athlete or just any other person in any line of work you have to recognize your limitations and so you know USADA and I don’t believe that they’re doing this but if they were to say, ‘you know we’re 100% effective in catching people in our current system,’ no one is. I mean that’s obvious. You know, if they were then people would be caught for HGH and they’re not being caught when we know that, you know, tons of athletes are using substances like that and other things. So, I think that’s probably first and foremost is to recognize that like you said we’re not going to catch everybody and start at the beginning and figure out you know how can we catch people most effectively and you know one thing that like I said Dr. Homansky had harped on for the last several years was to implement unannounced random testing and unfortunately the testing’s that now done that’s supposedly random and unannounced you know a fighter gets 48 hours to show up at the lab when if you look at how long some of these substances take or stay in a system of an athlete and I think even Victor Conte pointed this out very well that some drugs now athletes are using low-dose EPO, low-dose testosterone that can be out of someone’s system in a drug test within a couple of hours. So, if you give an athlete 48 hours to show up and they’re using these kinds of methods such as low-dose testosterone you’re not going to catch them. So, it’s important for everyone to understand the limitations and like you said, start at the basics you know what can we do that will be cost-effective, what can we do to improve the system and you know it’s a fluid process, change it as you go along.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “Yeah, I don’t really, I don’t know Conte. I read a lot of stuff about him obviously and I’m not exactly clear what his motives are, but I think what he’s raising has been a different approach than has been taken to this point by all of these commissions on this kind of issue. Basically it’s coming up with excuses and I blame the promoters on this as well, both boxing and MMA. Basically coming up with excuses to do nothing and basically ignoring what the rest of the world has learned from the 10 years or so that the World Anti-Doping Agency has been around. It’s far from perfect, there’s no question about that. They’re constantly changing what they’re doing and there are things changing also, new types of these so-called performance-enhancing drugs that are out there. But there’s just sort of a cultural thing of like, ‘we’re an island onto ourselves,’ it’s kind of like somebody just sort of living, separated off from the rest of society when these are the kind of procedures that are being used around the world and I think they’re constantly being improved and if you read the report there was an independent panel that examined WADA’s practices at the 2010 Olympics which were recently held in Vancouver and they found, it’s online you can read it, there were a number of problems that they had with the implementation and they called for better communication and a number of other changes like that, which you know reading over it quickly seemed to be pretty logical and make sense. And the officials that run WADA seemed to be pretty positive about the recommendations in that report. All those are very different from what the direction the Nevada commission had been, you know, which is see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil kind of a thing.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Exactly. I mean I think you’re complete right and I think now is the time to change and I just think you can’t turn a blind eye any more and ignore the problem because it’s everywhere. … Plus now you have other fighters… and they said they wanted their opponent tested and so I think you know this can either be used as an excuse or one-upsmanship by fighters. Whether they’re serious or not, but it keeps appearing over and over again so you just can’t say that we’re not going to worry about it.”
Dealing with users of Human Growth Hormone and those who advocate ‘personal choice’ when it comes to using PEDs
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “Let’s go back to this thing with HGH so people understand this. Tell us again, we have to, I think we have to do this every time because there are people who still come up and say, ‘well people should be allowed to use whatever they want’ like this is just a thing of personal choice or something like that. Why is this so dangerous and why is it, the injection of it, the use of it so different from taking vitamins and eating a healthy diet? Since HGH is something that naturally occurs, what’s the difference between taking you know vitamin C and vitamin D and taking HGH?”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Well, you know there’s two separate issues with that. Number one, people don’t know what the long term effects of that particular drug are in a normal healthy individual. And technically, that particular substance is only recommended for people with specific disease processes. It’s used in cancer patients and it’s used in children with growth hormone problems. But in a healthy adult, it’s really… it should never be used but yet somehow doctors these days are getting away with using it. But in athletes the problem is when you use a substance like that and it’s never really been explored because it’s considered possibly dangerous. You don’t know what the complete side-effects are as far as long-term use or periodic use especially in an athlete. Obviously, you’re going to have problems you know you can see, I think I can’t remember a good, some of the wrestlers when you look at some of the wrestlers you wondered whether or not they were on growth hormone because it increases some of their bone size, you know they get those big jaws.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “You talking about real wrestlers or fake wrestlers?”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Fake wrestlers. And you know they get some of those big jaws and increase in bone structure but all of these things are believed to lead to malignancies, cancers, just like anabolic steroids can. The other thing with growth hormone is interesting is probably very few athletes use it by itself. Mainly because nobody exactly knows you know how effective it is and nobody’s proven although athletes will swear that it’s helped them. You’ll often see them use it in combination with a whole host of other drugs and you well, I’m sure most of you are well aware when they take more than one medication at a time there can be drug interactions and sometimes a drug can potentiate or make the effects of another drug such as in this particular case an anabolic steroid more dangerous. So that makes somebody more pre-disposed to heart problems, liver problems, kidney problems, malignancies, brain tumors, all those kinds of things that are obviously lethal and have you know severe, if not lethal can have severe disabling complications if they’re used. So no one exactly knows but you brought up a really interesting point in that you know that’s part of the problem for testing for these substances is for someone like growth hormone in that it is a naturally-occurring substance you know what are abnormal levels of it? And you know I’ve had doctors, I’ve had fighters tell me that they go to a doctor and the doctor tells them that they should take growth hormone, I mean these are doctors and MMA athletes telling them that they need it because they’re deficient, you know they run some test and they say, ‘yeah you’re you know you’re deficient in this stuff so you need to be on it’ and then they end up you know abusing these things because a doctor’s telling them so not necessarily because they were looking and using a performance-enhancing agent. You know they have this doctor and I know this specific physician in town that was doing this to some boxers, saying you know you need this stuff because that’s why you’re not competing well, it’s not that we’re trying to give you a performance-enhancer, we’re just trying to get you to the level that everybody else is at which is really crazy because a normal, healthy fighter you know or athlete, a normal kid like that, they shouldn’t have a problem . That would be extremely rare.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “Now, so basically they’re trying to get them to do something to use something that isn’t tested for in the United States by any of the members of the Association of Boxing Commissions at this point.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Correct. Well, they don’t test for anything. So, I mean, more likely than not nothing, it’s never been tested for and nor will it right now and there’s all these problems with the accuracy of the tests, you know, and I think everyone’s come out and discussed that, especially Don Catlin at UCLA has discussed that over and over again that he believes that the test for growth hormone are just inadequate at this point and so you really almost never going to catch anybody unless the testing process changes and so you know I’m not even sure if he would recommend really testing for it.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “That switches to a very different approach because they tested for Human Growth Hormone among I forget what the number was, hundreds of athletes in the Beijing Olympics of 2008 and everybody tested clean and the question is, was everybody clean because they knew the test was coming? Or was the test bad and they did get one positive recently that rugby player who admitted using it and then people said, ah, the test worked and I had heard that they are in the process of working on a urine test for it but that’s not completed at this point.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “Right, and I mean I think to imagine that athletes aren’t using it, I mean you’ve been in a lot of these gyms and I’ve been in so many different gyms that the MMA athletes are using it readily, so I mean it’s just really unfortunate and it’s not fair to the ones that aren’t using it. Whether you know how much of a benefit it is, I can’t tell you because like I said I think it’s being used in combination with other substances. So, that needs to be looked at, too, but it’s just like you said I mean it’s just not right to ignore that it exists and that it is a problem.”
EDDIE GOLDMAN: “But EPO is something you mentioned earlier, which apparently the test is pretty good which I understand they use a blood test to get a level but the actual test for the abuse for it is done on a urine test but you have to screen for it which the commissions here don’t. In fact, the truth is you look at the medical requirements, many of these commissions don’t even at this point in 2010 screen for the old school steroids.”
DR. MARGARET GOODMAN: “No. No, most don’t and most have no intention of doing so because they believe it’s too expensive and so you’re just not going to see that change, I mean it’s… I was talking to someone the other day from another commission… and they were saying here they have these meetings with all these different commissions together from the Association of Boxing Commissions and they talk about the drug testing over and over and over again, it’s like a broken record and very few commissions have changed their protocols or even included anabolic steroids and when asked you know what do they think about doing it, I wrote this recent article for The Ring (magazine) and I asked help the American Association of Professional Ring Physicians to help go ask all the various commissions you know are they going to start changing their drug testing policies after what’s happened with the debacle of Pacquiao and Mayweather and all that discussion and none of them said, none of them said that they were going to make any changes and they all had various reasons but none of them were thinking about it and you know, look there’s a lot of reasons for them not to and they can make the same excuses that I mentioned earlier that the testing isn’t perfected, why should we do it, but you know once again they’re you know being turning a blind eye to it so I just can’t see it you know the problem is that unless you’re forced to do something nobody’s going to do it but then you have what happens as a result is you got athletes venue shopping, you know shopping different commissions and different jurisdictions where they don’t have to be tested for certain things and there are plenty of athletes you don’t want to come to Nevada still because they don’t want to have to undergo some of the tests that are done here already.”
Make sure to download the full interview here and check it out. Dr. Goodman did an outstanding job on the show.
Update (6/08/2010): From Monday’s Observer radio show, Dave Meltzer’s commentary on the matter:
“They learned what the testing can do the fact is there’s more money behind the athletes that are beating the tests than there is money being given to the guys to develop the tests so it’s just the reality of sports. I mean there’s nothing that can be said. I wish it was clean. I guess, you know, there is a benefit of testing. Don’t get me wrong. You cannot, there’s a lot of things that you can’t do and you certainly can’t do gigantic doses and just be like a fricking you know like you know. Put it this way, there are guys in MMA, OK, that would be heavy, heavy user steroid users and have been heavy steroid users that I know of that may still use it and go to the right guys to beat the tests but the point is they are using it but they are not using it at anywhere near the level that they would have used it or had used it when they weren’t being tested. So, it does… it does make a difference. But… you know, I mean, you know when someone says I mean I don’t care who it is, you know whether it’s Manny Pacquiao or you know Barry Bonds or you know Aleksandr Karelin or whenever I hear Brock Lesnar and whenever some goes you know like, ‘Well, he’s never failed a test,’ it’s like… never failing a test means absolutely nothing to me. Now I’m not accusing anyone of anything, I’m just saying, well Barry Bonds obviously, OK, that one. Because that’s all come out, but… you know, it’s… you know the testing, it’s… it’s just a really weird subject because the guys who are clean, it is unfair to the guys who are clean to compete against guys who are not clean. Whether it’s in pro-wrestling or whether it’s in a real sport because you’re still judged you know I mean in wrestling you’re judged on your body and in the real sports you’re judged on your performance and that performance enhancing certainly in speed and strength, so it is unfair. There are clean guys who compete at a high level, I believe, I know they do, but it’s… you know, it’s just a weird process and it’s just kind of what it is and I think it’s always going to be like this. I think there’s always going to be new compounds found. And I mean like you know again I’m hearing about the new using they’re using now, you know the stuff they’re testing for isn’t even the state-of-the-art stuff any more, you know there’s new state-of-the-art stuff so, whatever. That’s the big drug speech.”
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“And you know they get some of those big jaws and increase in bone structure but all of these things are believed to lead to malignancies, cancers, just like anabolic steroids can.”
I thought she was talking about Alistair Overeem there for a second.
Man, it’s not just Overeem. Sorry but look at before and after pictures of Randy Couture, BJ penn and Tito Ortiz. The difference in jaw size is dramatic.
Actually it’s something I’ve always wondered about. Randy has become this iconic figure and maybe people don’t want to talk crap about him. But even BJ with all his dumb talk after his GSP fight, people weren’t saying anything about him either (in that regard). When I talk to my MMA buddies, everybody says “yeah those guys’ heads have grown” but in the media and even the forums this topic seems taboo.
Ed. — You could say that their heads have gotten bigger in many ways!
I haven’t seen it at much in BJ Penn. You are right on Ortiz and Couture. Ortiz had a big head to begin with, but it’s gotten even bigger in the last few years. And it’s been commented on that Couture has had some help from drugs as well.
The shape of your head/jaw is something that should not really be changing as you get older.
HGH needs to be tested for in all of the major sports.
i’m not understanding why the commissions are not more pro-active in drug testing.
is it only because of the costs? can it not be deferred to the organizations to pay or are they worried it may affect the bottom line of smaller organizations. as dr. goodman said, it’s never going to be a perfect system, but that shouldn’t stop them from doing a better job at it.
I think they’re not proactive simply because they’re not proactive in nature.
Because if you test for HGH you’re going to be pulling the main eventers who make your commission the money because they can afford the stuff. And as everybody knows, they’re there to make money and give the appearance of regulation but not doing much but popping a few idiots who take horse steroids every now and then. AC’s as really nothing more but a toll booth to allow you entry into a venue.
mma would be in trouble because most of its athletes are gh users…look at brocks forehead and arms and dos santos forehead and tito ortiz big forehead…also joe rogans…mma would be boring if they didnt use gh…they would be tentative and not that aggresive…lets not kid ourselves brock lesner was arrested for steroids in his wwe days….
It could be argued that increased bone density of the jaw and head from GH use would decrease likelihood of head trauma and improve fighter safety.
Also, correct me if i’m wrong, there is an inherent conflict of interest with the commissions. Who does the testing (Commissions or someone contracted with the commissions) – who gets the fines (commissions).
As soon as someone with a lab produces and administers the short form of GH along with the long form, the test will be compromised. However, naturally GH secretion is pulsatile and its difficult to mimic with an injectable. Plus, the test won’t catch those using GH secretagogues.
For those that care about normal age-related changes to the head:
http://people.uncw.edu/pattersone/…/AlbertRicanekPatterson_FSI2007.pdf
Arrested does not equal convicted.
But they’d rather get the revenue money a big fight would bring in than settle for a $5,000 drug test fine. So the real conflict of interest would be them intentionally half-assing testing to make sure they get their big commission taxes.
With steroids, anybody can afford it and those busted are usually lower card fighters who screwed up on their drug test math. But with HGH, nobody but the wealthy fighters can afford to go on that long term. So who would go out of their way to possibly bust Brock Lesnar, Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture, BJ Penn, GSP, Frank Mir, and every other big fighter who has been rumored to be doping. Those guys gone for a long period of time would be a nightmare when combined with injuries taking out fighters. Neither UFC nor the commissions want that.
[…] conduct isn’t enough, even though they’ve long maintained that it is. After reading the transcript of this interview with Dr. Margaret Goodman, the former chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the […]
Would a fighter willing to use performance enhancing drugs fear the blood test method for catching cheaters like him so much that he would have no choice but to train the natural way for his upcoming fight?
Yes, they’d still use. It’s common knowledge that HGH tests only work for catching people who have used the substance in far less than 24 hours. I believe Meltzer said in the piece Zach quoted from that the Olympic testers have only caught one person using HGH just because they got a tip from someone that he was injecting it that day. But otherwise there is no way to catch it because unlike steroids jacking up your testosterone levels to unnatural levels, it appears to be natural.
And they create new stuff in labs all of the time. So who knows what Balco type operations are selling to big money athletes who can afford it now. Commissions would be testing for substances that are at least 5 years old.
The ONLY way to get 100% full proof drug free athletes is if you have someone following them 24/7/365 everywhere they go: into bathrooms with them, into showers with them, cuddling up next to them as they sleep, inspecting their food before they eat it, checking their butts for needle marks every hour. And that would be impossible. So, no, there is no way to stop them.
Dave also had a funny story about when a gym he worked out at in the early 80s in Campbell, CA where some weightlifters were training at that found out their overseeing commission was running fake drug tests because they honestly believed just the fear of getting caught would be enough to make the guys stay clean. But when they found out the weightlifters were using PEDs because they knew it was all a sham they started really testing them and suddenly, right before a competition, nearly the entire roster of guys got phantom injuries and didn’t pulled out of the competition before they could legit test them.
Meltzer said they were complaining in the gym that “They’re not supposed to really catch us.” I think that story perfectly sums up all drug testing. It’s all a show that just catches the extra stupid.
[…] most of you know, Dr. Margaret Goodman talked about this conference call (before it happened) and thought that maybe, finally, the NSAC would at least acknowledge that there is a problem and […]
[…] This response is very revealing on a couple of levels. First, it totally indicates that the issue of doping is more or less a nuisance issue in White’s eyes. It’s something that flares up every now and again, in his eyes, as mostly a headache rather than an issue about morality in sports. This makes for an interesting juxtaposition to how he always goes around calling UFC a sport. OK, so you want to be a sport and not like a pro-wrestling promotion? Encourage better drug testing on every front and be supportive of your fighters who do want better drug testing, whether their reasons are pure or are based on oneupsmanship as Dr. Margaret Goodman noted about Floyd Mayweather. […]