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Ken Shamrock says his comments about legalizing steroids were taken out of context

By Zach Arnold | July 7, 2010

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Ken Shamrock is back to clarify remarks he made during an interview on HDNet about steroids.

First, to setup his new comments about the California State Athletic Commission, his usage of steroids, and what he wants to see happen with steroid usage in MMA, he spent the first couple of minutes of the interview talking about his upcoming fight with Pedro Rizzo in Australia. While he was vague about his game plan against Rizzo, Shamrock did say this:

“He’s got to respect my stand-up in order for me to have anything else work. … My stand-up definitely at times has been questionable, so I’ve really practiced and really, really, really studied that stand-up and footwork and angles and punch combinations and kicks and stuff, so that way my takedowns become easier, my submissions become easier because now they have to respect me when I’m on the feet.

Shamrock said that Rizzo is the same fighter that he’s always been and has not improved his overall game.

And with that, we get into his suspension from California over a failed drug test, what his future is, and the push-back he’s received from the interview with Mike Straka on HDNet.

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “In your last fight, the California State Athletic Commission fined and suspended you for a year after they discovered three banned substances in your system, which you said were from legal products. Now, California has had issues before with other fighters including Sean Sherk, so what do you think is going on with the CSAC that they seem to be constantly having these issues while other commissions don’t?”

KEN SHAMROCK: “Well, it just seems to me like they need to clean house. It seems like they’re always changing commissions. Their office is in the scramble right now, no one knows who’s running what. The tests and their organization, I guess, is definitely up in the air. You know, you don’t know sometimes, like for instance on my test didn’t come back until 3 1/2 weeks after the event. I’ve been fighting in MMA since the beginning of this and I’ve never in my entire career ever heard of a test coming back 3 1/2 weeks later and it was right after I signed the fight to fight at an event in Miami against Bobby Lashley did I not find out that my test at that time was dirty. I never knew anything until after that contract was signed and then all of a sudden I get this notice two days later that I was dirty and I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. And to this day, I’ve never had a court date.”

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “Nothing at all? They haven’t sent you any response in regards to appealing it?”

KEN SHAMROCK: “No, nothing.”

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “All right now you recently went on Fighting Words with Mike Straka on HDNet where you admitted to previous steroid use and talked about the usage of it in Mixed Martial Arts and you stated that fans are part of the problem. Now I wanted to ask, at the end of the day, you’re the fighter in the cage and the fans are the ones watching from home, so do you think it’s right to point fingers at the fans or is it more so the responsibility of the fighter to have a greater mindset to overcome things like that?”

KEN SHAMROCK: “You know, I’m sorry if that’s the way it came off to point fingers at fans because that’s not what I was doing. What I was doing was make an awareness of people understanding their sports. When you get into a situation like baseball or basketball or football, boxing, and you see a guy come out of college and you see how much he grows and how big he gets and I’m not saying the average fan, you know, I’m not talking about the person who sits home and watches the game because they really, they’re just watching it and being entertained. I’m talking about from the media, I’m talking about from the sportswriters, I’m talking about from the hardcore fans who hear all the rumbles behind the scenes, who know all the stuff that’s going on, and they stick their heads in the stand like and then they’re shocked when this stuff comes out. I’m not saying that it’s not the athlete’s responsibility at all, no way. But what I’m saying is when something like that comes out and then you have people going, ‘oh my God, I can’t believe he was doing that!’… that to me is wrong because to me most likely and I’m not saying in all cases, but most likely people know what’s going on.”

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “So it’s more so that people are just turning a blind eye to it than suddenly pointing fingers afterwards?”

KEN SHAMROCK: “Yeah, I mean I’m not saying it’s the responsibility of the fans because it’s not, I mean they’re watching the game and they’re having fun and they’re all enjoying it and there’s absolutely no responsibi8lity on them. The athlete and the reporters, they don’t even have a responsibility on this at all. But by no means do when somebody comes up dirty, you have an idea about what’s going on and you never step up and said anything do you jump on the bandwagon and be a part of that program. Because that’s what happens is guys who don’t want to take a stand on it because they’re afraid that they might piss somebody off but then once somebody else takes a stand on it and goes, you know what’s that’s wrong, we’re going to test, they start testing, they catch a few people, they start going after them, then these other people who knew all along what was going on start jumping on that side because now it’s politically correct.”

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “Now, you also mentioned how you think steroids should be legalized. Now, um,…”

KEN SHAMROCK: “No, that was taken out of context. I do not and absolutely do not believe that steroids should be legal. My intention on that whole conversation was I thought that steroids should be CONTROLLED. CONTROLLED, not legalized, because I said even in the statement that if you allow it to be legal people are going to get bigger, faster, stronger, and somebody’s going to get hurt.”

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “OK, and how do you propose to control steroids then in sports?”

KEN SHAMROCK: “The same way they do it now. They test levels in the body. There’s levels that are extremely high, that are very unsafe for an athlete and there’s levels in the body that are extremely safe and that help recovery in injuries. So, if you’re going to go ahead and test the levels in an athlete’s body, then you can go ahead and test the levels in a athlete’s body which is safe, which is good for recovery, which is good for their health, which is good for their living. They’re not going to be coming out of the sport all beat up and not being able to walk or not being able to think, you know they’re going to be able to recover and be healthy, be rejuvenated, a thing called age-management. Which is a big thing in society right now, which helps your test levels in your body and your hCs levels in your body and your HGH levels in your body to come back up to a healthy level so your body can recover, you can feel alive again, your body feels good. These are things that are safe, medically proven that are safe to help you have a healthier and a better life after the age of 50 or 60.”

MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “I guess a lot of fans just don’t really understand the term steroid and how many different uses it has, you know it’s not just necessarily the kind of thing that makes your muscles get huge, right?”

KEN SHAMROCK: “No, and you know, and that’s… that’s why when I talk about you know it being controlled, in an controlled environment, there’s certain things that you do not allow into the sports because it’s not healthy and a lot of these kids who are coming in and they’re hearing about these guys who are playing baseball and the guys who are playing football and basketball and boxing and in MMA and they see these guys and they’re having success, then once they get to a certain point where they feel like you know what I need that extra oomph and they start going out and doing it but they’re uneducated about what it is they’re getting.”

Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

7 Responses to “Ken Shamrock says his comments about legalizing steroids were taken out of context”

  1. Fluyid says:

    “I do not and absolutely do not believe that steroids should be legal. My intention on that whole conversation was I thought that steroids should be CONTROLLED.”

    They should be illegal and controlled?

    MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ: “OK, and how do you propose to control steroids then in sports?”

    KEN SHAMROCK: “The same way they do it now.”

    Oh.

    “But by no means do when somebody comes up dirty, you have an idea about what’s going on and you never step up and said anything do you jump on the bandwagon and be a part of that program. Because that’s what happens is guys who don’t want to take a stand on it because they’re afraid that they might piss somebody off but then once somebody else takes a stand on it and goes, you know what’s that’s wrong, we’re going to test, they start testing, they catch a few people, they start going after them, then these other people who knew all along what was going on start jumping on that side because now it’s politically correct.”

    Can someone interpret that? I have always felt that I had pretty decent reading comprehension and I’m at a loss.

    • Zach Arnold says:

      What he was trying to say is that MMA media writers know who’s on the sauce and who isn’t but that no one will speak up about it until someone is a whistle-blower or a fighter fails a test, and then those same writers will act like hypocrites and talk as if they were shocked but knew the real story the whole time.

      Right message, perhaps wrong messenger.

      • Fluyid says:

        So he thinks that MMA writers should accuse someone of being juiced before any proof (in the form of positive tests) comes out? Or they should say “I knew this all along” afterwards?

        I think he’s just a person with a chip on his shoulder and this is some BS way to act all put out.

        • Zach Arnold says:

          If I may do so based on my thoughts on what Ken said in the interview, the impression I came away with is that he feels that the writers who cover MMA and the hardcore fans don’t just suspect but actually know who’s on growth hormone or steroids and that they won’t say names until they get busted and then pull the “I am shocked” act when they knew it all along because they don’t have the balls to call out names… because they really don’t care about the issue.

          In a sense, I understand that position but it’s not being communicated clearly by Ken.

          I had a radio passage from about a month ago from Dave Meltzer where he was trying to justify the NSAC policy on steroid testing by saying that even though it’s not totally effective, at least it limits steroid users from becoming ultra-hardcore steroid users and that he had talked to fighters about this topic specifically.

  2. grafdog says:

    What he’s saying is when you are making the money the ko’s and the homeruns every body ignores your steroid use. People want to relate in a positive way to their favorite sport stars. But when you are trying to compete in a sport at an advanced age and the people who ignored your steroid use when you were a moneymaker are now ignoring YOU while focusing on your steroid usage thereby curtailing your money making ability and soiling your legacy. Its strange that the already questionable csac wasn’t able to get the results back until after Ken had signed for the Lashley fight.
    And the ufc (as noted in an article on this site)apparently isn’t required to test any fighters at “some” events shows that the whole steroid thing when it comes up is just a political way to taint an opponent of your brand.

  3. Rob Maysey says:

    Shamrock is right–many, not all, do know what is going on.

    They may not know all the specific “who’s” but they know it is a good percentage as well. The feigned ignorance and shock after the fact is disingenuous.

  4. Ivan Trembow says:

    What Shamrock is saying about some in the MMA media is not far-fetched at all. In fact, there have been times when Dave Meltzer has mentioned knowing which specific fighters are on steroids or other banned substances, but without naming names.

    To list one specific example, after Josh Barnett failed a steroids test for the third time in his career and when Affliction was scrambling to try to find potential replacements to fight Fedor Emelianenko on last-minute notice, Meltzer wrote in the Observer that he knew of a few specific fighters who had to turn down the fight specifically because they knew that they wouldn’t be able to pass a drug test at that time, but these fighters were not named.

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