By now, the shock of both Sean Sherk and Hermes Franca testing positive for steroids has subsided a bit.  The ripple of that stone being thrown into the pond of MMA, however, remains.  There are of course worse things that could have happened and could yet happen to the UFC.  But there’s a way to prevent, or at least curb the possibility, that some similar scandal could rock the organization (and the sport) in the future, when the ramifications are potentially more far-reaching. 

There are a few key points worth discussing in the statement sent to MMAWeekly by Hermes Franca.  He explains early on that he contacted the UFC to tell them about his ankle injury, and how it could possibly preclude him from fighting.  He wanted to postpone the fight until the next event, but this idea was promptly shot down.  Now of course, keep in mind that UFC 73 was eight weeks away at this point, and the cards for the next two or three events were largely in place.  To postpone the fight would mean to have to sign a quick replacement fight on short notice, and to squeeze a semi-main event into one of the next cards, where the main events were at least already planned, if not signed.  But postponing the fight wouldn’t have been the answer anyway.  A replacement opponent would have been named, and Franca would have lost his shot.  But in all fairness, he would have gotten the shot later, right?  Well, history may prove that theory wrong.  Let’s get in the wayback machine, shall we?

Back in late 2005, Karo Parisyan was on a bit of a roll.  He’d won four straight fights over some stiff competition in the form of Shonie Carter, Nick Diaz, Chris Lytle, and current champ Matt Serra.  His last loss had come at the hands of Georges St. Pierre, who had lost his own bid at the title shortly thereafter.  Matt Hughes had just vanquished Frank Trigg for the second time, and it seemed that he and Parisyan were on a collision course.  Fate would intervene, however, when Parisyan was injured shortly before his scheduled bout with then-champion Hughes at UFC 56.  Parisyan had to pull out of the fight, and Joe Riggs would go on to lose to Hughes in what turned out to be a non-title fight, due to Riggs’ inability to make weight (which is another story in itself).  Just a bump in the road for Parisyan, right?  Well, not really.  Parisyan came back and fought in an untelevised bout against UFC rookie Nick Thompson in April of 2006 for his return.  He would then go on to lose to Diego Sanchez in what many considered to be the best fight of 2006, before beating Drew Fickett and Josh Burkman by decision.  And now?  Now there’s at least the winner of Koscheck/St. Pierre in front of the Armenian.  Almost two years have passed, and Parisyan is no closer to his lost title shot than he was when he fought Nick Thompson.  So the lesson learned for any UFC title contender is that you don’t pull out of a title fight unless you really can’t go.  Do whatever you have to in order to fight, but you’ve got to fight.

And so we have one motivation for Hermes Franca to take steroids.  Whether or not you believe Franca, or feel that his motivations warranted his actions, is immaterial.  The motivation is there, and that’s indisputable.  The UFC set the precedent with Parisyan, and until someone else pulls out of a title fight and is given a shot upon his return, there’s no reason to believe that a different fate would await any other would-be title contender. 

So that brings us to the next point in Franca’s statement.  He talks about how fighting is how he makes his living, and how he lives from fight to fight.  There’s a big problem with this if it’s true.  Look at Franca’s last year.  Here’s a guy who fought seven times (three in the UFC) between March of last year and January of this year.  If three fights in the UFC don’t pay you enough to be able to skip a fight due to injury five months later, or if the UFC isn’t willing to take care of a title contender who’s laid up temporarily, we’ve got a problem.  And it doesn’t matter whether Franca was telling the truth here, or whether it justified his taking steroids in order to take the fight.  (For the record, nothing justifies his taking steroids before this fight.  All health risks aside, he knew that he was going to be tested, and he knew it would come up positive, and he knew he’d be fined and suspended.  So taking the drug defies all logic.  But again, that’s not the point.)  The point is that we have no way to prove or disprove anything he’s saying. 

The lesson that the UFC can learn here is simple.  Be more transparent with the business.  I understand that Dana White and the Fertittas feel like they shouldn’t have to disclose anything, seeing as how the UFC is a privately owned company, and that makes sense to a certain degree.  But when the UFC becomes bigger than it already is, when they’re on ESPN and/or network television, when they’re more likely to be more heavily scrutinized by journalists and potentially government, the willingness to be open with business practices would work to their advantage.  Saying, “we take care of our fighters” means jack.  Sure, Chuck Liddell makes a good living.  But everyone knows that.  What about guys like Franca?  What about guys like Roger Huerta?  Or Clay Guida?  Houston Alexander?  Alessio Sakara?  What about those guys?  If they don’t get the hefty fight of the night bonus (which, by the way, is completely arbitrary), what do they get paid?  Do they need to work a job on the side?  Do they depend on sponsors?  And if so, why?  Any fighter in the UFC should be able to make a decent year’s salary with a couple of fights.

Let’s just look at it this way.  Say the UFC pays every fighter on the card $50,000, with a $50,000 win bonus (way, way more than even some main eventers get paid right now).  And let’s say that a pay-per-view event does 100,000 buys (way fewer than reality).  That gives us a total fighter salary of $1.35 million.  The total PPV revenue (not counting the live gate or the merchandise sales, on which the UFC is completely missing the boat) would be $4 million at $40 per buy.  Have a look at that ratio.  Almost 40:1 profit to fighter salary.  Is that too much to ask for the guys that are selling the show?

Granted, the actual logistics are more complicated than that, and not everyone is promoted in a way that all fighters “sell the show”, but the principle is the same.  Maybe the UFC is paying their guys enough.  But until they make the real salaries public, and not just the official salaries that get reported to the state, we won’t know for sure.  Not only that, but we’ll continue to see guys who appear to be grossly underpaid.  To pay a fighter $3,000 to fight and $3,000 to win on a night where the company is making the kind of money that the UFC is making is disgraceful, plain and simple.  I understand the principle of fighting one’s way into the show, but I don’t understand how someone would be less motivated if they made big money in their first appearance for a promotion, with the promise of more of the same and bigger money to come.  There is no disadvantage to paying your fighters more money, and there’s no disadvantage to disclosing the real fighter salaries to the public, other than the loss of a secret that you can hold over the public’s head.  To keep mum for the sake of keeping mum is ludicrous.

There’s another aspect to this.  Secrecy in general implies that there’s something to hide.  If the UFC wants to avoid the same fate as boxing, that’s another reason to be more transparent.  The organization of boxing today turns a lot of potential fans off.  Corruption is almost a given in the sport.  With the UFC, not only do we have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, but the promotion is based out of the seediest place in the country—Las Vegas.  Why do you think no major sport will touch Vegas?  There won’t ever be a major sports team there, because the association with a town like that is too risky.  Gambling is a huge part of sports, and no one is denying that.  But no one is embracing it either.  And if you wonder why, look no further than Tim Donaghy, the corrupt NBA official who was potentially fixing games because of—you guessed it—gambling debts.  The association with Las Vegas doesn’t do anyone any good, despite the rich history that the city has with combat sports.  Mixed martial arts, and the UFC in particular, is in the process of writing history at this time.  Why follow a pattern that has failed in the long run?  Why associate yourself so closely with a vice that has destroyed countless lives?  It may sound dramatic, but it’s true.  The Fertittas and Dana White are already millionaires many times over.  We all know that they lost a lot of money before they made any.  But you can bet that they’ve made it all back, and then some.  Isn’t it time to start making good on the promise to secure the future of the sport?

There are other issues to discuss in the realm of improving MMA and the UFC, but for now, the UFC ought to look at what lessons Hermes and Karo provide, and actually learn from them.  If we’ve learned anything from the debacles that have hit professional wrestling over the past couple of months, it’s that you can operate in a bubble for a long time if you’re lucky, but you can’t do it forever.  The sooner the UFC starts worrying about what people think, the better they’ll be for it in the long run.  Stubbornness can only get you so far.