mma / Columns

USADA: The Necessary Evil of MMA

July 19, 2016 | Posted by Evan Zivin

This is why we can’t have nice things…

As much fun as it’d be to spend this week delving into the UFC sale and discussing contracts and business dealings and asking a lot of questions that there currently are no answers to and speaking with some amount of authority on a topic that I have no legitimate authority on (all hail the power of the mighty keyboard warrior), I’d find it a little more interesting to ask this:

What the hell, Brock?

Seriously, what the hell?

How could you do this to us? We welcomed you back with open arms and this is how you treat us? You respected our sport and then spit on it at the exact same time?

There are an endless number of ways to react to Friday’s news that Brock Lesnar, the WWE Superstar and former UFC Heavyweight Champion who made his successful return to shoot fighting at UFC 200 with a dominant win over Mark Hunt, was flagged for a doping violation by the USADA, the organization UFC uses as their third party testing agency.

There are many ways to react but it’s hard to determine the correct reaction, partly because we don’t know what Brock’s failure it for. Rumors are saying it’s an asthma medication but that has yet to be confirmed by a credible source.

And no, I don’t count, but you were already well aware of that.

What is interesting is that, according to the USADA’s website, Brock was tested 8 times in the leadup to the UFC 200 co-main event, which means there were tests he took prior to June 28, the date the positive test was taken, which came back clean. There are also tests he took after that date, but it’s not certain yet if all of those tests have come back clean or not.

What we do know, however, is where the blame should be placed for these series of events taking place: on the USADA, because they have ruined the result of another fight and their findings mean another popular fighter may never compete again. For shame, USADA. For shame…

SHAME!

SHAME!

I seriously cannot believe I’ve seen people getting upset at USADA for doing something like this or for flagging Jon Jones before UFC 200, causing the event to lose its main event mere days before the show went down.

Everyone who is complaining about this does realize this is the USADA’s job, right? They realize this is what the UFC hired them to do, right?

In an MMA landscape where the integrity of the sport is continually forced to take a backseat to the entertainment side of it (AKA the side that actually makes money), we should be thrilled that this sort of thing is happening. Fighters who use banned substances or ingest something that hasn’t been approved for use in or out of MMA competition should be getting tested and should be getting caught when they don’t pass.

We knew when UFC was implementing year-round enhanced drug testing that this sort of thing was potentially going to happen, but we were okay with it because we knew that this was a necessary step towards cleaning up the sport. Obviously, at the time, it was hard to fathom what kinds of fights we were going to be losing, since obviously our favorite fighters would never try to cheat the system. Never…

If we need to be angry at anyone over this news (and, until more details emerge, we really shouldn’t), it should be Brock and his camp. If top athletes like Brock and Jon Jones are clean and don’t use banned substances, then this should never be a problem because they have the resources to make sure they are clean and that USADA knows about everything they put into their bodies.

I mean, how do these guys not have USADA on speed dial? How do they not have someone in their camp keeping constant contact with USADA, or Jeff Novitsky, the UFC executive in charge of the drug testing program on their end, to let them know about everything their athlete is taking throughout the course of their camp?

If Brock, or any other fighter, has any medications that they may use during the course of their training, such as for asthma, why wasn’t USADA made well aware of it so they could either issue an exemption or keep the information on file somewhere in case the medication appeared on a drug test?

I could understand some lesser athletes who haven’t made a name for themselves or much money in the sport finding it challenging to stay up to date with the USADA’s policies, even though they should still be able to pick up a phone and talk to a representative about any questionable supplements their nutritionist bought at GNC, but this should never be a problem for top athletes who can afford the best training and nutrition and can pay people to do that for them, especially when the consequences of not doing so could involve getting fined seven figures or being forced into retirement.

It’s why the whole “tainted supplements” excuse is so bogus. Sure, it’s plausible to think that a professional athlete took a substance without knowing exactly what is in that substance, but, if that’s true, that shows a severe lack of responsibility on the fighter’s part for not doing their research or for trusting the word of a coach or training partner whose own knowledge and experience may not be completely reliable.

The way this story may spin could also reflect quite poorly on the UFC, since they were the ones who allowed Brock to come back without being available for testing for four months prior to his return. Sure, they wrote the rule to allow for exceptions in extraordinary circumstances (“We need at least 1.6 million buys or the show will be considered a failure and we don’t want to cave to Conor McGregor’s temper tantrum again!”), but they also tried to assure the MMA fanbase that there wouldn’t be an issue with Brock and look what happened.

*Insert joke about Brock Lesnar saying he was “jacked” and then failing a drug test here*

In a world where everyone is always looking for an advantage and we can never be 100% certain if fighters are being honest with anything they say, especially with regards to how “clean” they are (and the excuses they make when a drug testing agency says otherwise), it’s hard to know what to believe.

But, that being said, no matter where the truth lies, the fighter still ends up looking bad, either by trying to cheat or by being ignorant enough to put themselves in a situation where others can call them cheaters.

As of this writing, nothing has been determined yet regarding Brock Lesnar’s test. No conclusions have been drawn publicly and no punishments have been dealt, since being “flagged” means nothing more than a drug test linked to a specific fighter came back that didn’t look the way a clean test should. Maybe it was a simple mistake due to a medication. Maybe it was something with more malicious intent. Either way, I hope Brock can live with the consequences.

What am I saying? Of course he can live with it. He doesn’t care about any of us. Plus, he should still be getting his WWE paycheck. Maybe he’ll even share some of it with Mark Hunt.

It’s okay, Mark. I’m sure the Internet will forgive you for trashing you after all the comments you made about Brock being a drug cheat. They always forgive. Always…

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.

article topics :

Brock Lesnar, USADA, Evan Zivin