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Whopper of the week

By Zach Arnold | August 4, 2007

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The Bob Arum/Dana White feud is turning out to be a goldmine for quotes. Arum fires the latest salvo by claiming that UFC has a bigger drug problem than the Tour de France. UFC Mania has links to the audio clips. Sam Caplan shares his thoughts.

The only topic that gets Bob’s blood pumping more is when you mention the Nevada State Athletic Commission and he starts railing against them as a bunch of lousy “Republicans.”

Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

11 Responses to “Whopper of the week”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    I saw when UFC Mania showed a snippet of what he said. He is claiming over 50% of the guys are getting busted.

    He sounds like a crazy old man.

  2. Fluyid says:

    Attack me for my opinion, but Arum MAY be correct. At any rate, I certainly wouldn’t call it a whopper of a statement.

    I humbly submit that a very, very high percentage of UFC fighters are on something illegal or otherwise prohibited.

    Now, I haven’t listened to Arum. He may be raving and presenting himself as some lunatic on this topic, but there is room for (educated) speculation that the UFC has one hell of a problem on its hands.

  3. Sam Caplan says:

    Fluyid, listen to it. It would have been one thing if he had said something like “If the tested everyone I’d be willing to bet 50-60% would test positive” but he made the blanket statement that 50-60% of the UFC is on the juice as if he was 100% sure.

    Might he be right? Who knows. But if you make that kind of accusation you better bring some proof to the table.

    How many false blanket accusations can a guy make before he’s held accountable?

  4. Ivan Trembow says:

    Bob Arum’s statements are completely ridiculous. The UFC’s statements to the effect of, “Nope, nothing more we can do here” are also completely ridiculous. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes.

  5. Fluyid says:

    Indeed. In the strictest sense, one cannot put a precise percentage on any sports organization.

  6. Xenos says:

    Look, I am a lifelong, die-hard cycling fan. There is simply no way that the UFC has a bigger drug problem than cycling. It is difficult for an outsider to imagine just how ingrained doping is in cycling culture, especially with the top (ProTour) teams. These guys get their hands on everything. Lance Armstrong’s team was found dumping empty medical bags (along with empty vials of EPO and testosterone) of the calf-blood derivative Actovegin at the Tour in 2000. Actovegin was not even on the market at the time. Michael Rasmussen, the rider who lead the Tour for 9 days this year and was eventually kicked out, tried to trick a friend into smuggling the very dangerous fake blood product Hemopure into Italy from the United States in 2002. Hemopure didn’t even come out onto the market until 2006, and it is only approved for human use in South Africa. Nobody knows how he got his hands on the stuff when it was still in the developmental phase.

    Neither of those cases are remotely isolated. It is not uncommon at all for cyclists to get caught with medical products that are still in the testing phases. This isn’t to mention the fact that team managers, in concert with team doctors, set up rigorous and exhausting doping programs for their riders. Lance Armstrong’s team was said to receive 25 microdose injections of EPO a day in training camp. That’s just in the off-season training camp. During the season, especially before the Tour, in addition to the injections they receive, homologous blood transfusions are the norm. They extract the blood after the high mountain stages during the Dauphine Libere, a pre-Tour de France warmup race, where team doctors spin it in a centrifuge to seperate the concentrated red blood cells from the plasma, and they pack and refrigerate the red blood cells for use in the Tour when necessary – say, before a time trial or a big mountain stage. That is why you can see some guys suffering on one mountain stage and flying up the mountains on the next. It is why the top contenders such as Lance, Basso, Ullrich, Contador, Rasmussen, etc. are able to recover so quickly after mind-blowing, inhuman performances.

    To say that the UFC’s doping problem is worse than cycling’s is woefully ignorant.

  7. Fluyid says:

    Fairplay, but it is likewise difficult for an outsider to imagine just how ingrained doping is in MMA culture.

    And I won’t even call your viewpoint ignorant. 🙂

  8. Xenos says:

    Fairplay, but it is likewise difficult for an outsider to imagine just how ingrained doping is in MMA culture.

    You don’t honestly think that doping in MMA is as evolved as it is in cycling, do you? Do you think MMA fighters are getting access to cutting-edge drugs that haven’t even left the laboratories yet? That aren’t even approved for animal, let alone human, use? Do you think Greg Jackson is running a gigantic blood doping and steroid ring along with five official “team doctors” from his Jackson’s Submission Fighting team?

    There’s no doubt that MMA has its own drug problems, but they are not on the level of cycling’s.

  9. Fluyid says:

    Are we talking level of doping sophistication or are we talking percentage of participants who are using?

    I guess we need to back up and define what each of us is discussing.

  10. Xenos says:

    I was talking about the level of sophistication. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of professional athletes, regardless of sport, are on some kind of banned performance enhancing drug.

  11. Fluyid says:

    That being the case, I concede to you.

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