MMA News
Williams' MMA News Blog: New HGH Urine Test, Aleksander's Future, Affliction Numbers
By By: Alex Williams, MMATorch Contributor
Jul 23, 2008 - 6:19:46 PM

USA Today reports that a group of U.S. and Italian scientists claim to have developed a urine test for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) that could be on the market in as soon as six months. If the test is viable, then MMA fighters could soon be tested for HGH in the same way that they are tested for steroids. Presently, only HGH blood tests are available, which are expensive to utilize and cannot detect HGH unless the agent has been used recently.

After my blog post yesterday noting that Aleksander Emelianenko was claiming to have failed the CSAC licensing requirements for a "non-medical" issue, MMANews.com says that "a source close to the situation" states that Emelianenko did, in fact, tests positive for Hepatitis B. As MMANews notes, it is unlikely that Aleksander will be sanctioned to fight anywhere in the U.S. if he is Hepatitis B positive.

Affliction VP Tom Atencio told Kevin Iole at Yahoo! Sports that the Affliction: Banned event drew over 100,000 PPV purchases, considerably more than the 75,000 that were expected. But then again, considering that $500,000 of the $2.1 million gate came from tickets purchased by Affliction itself, and given that Atencio admits that, as Iole puts it, "the pay scale was artificially high because Affliction needed to make noise in the industry," it seems that Affliction cares a lot about creating at least the appearance of financial success. While that PPV number is impressive if true, I'm skeptical of it. We should know more in the coming weeks.

On a non-MMA note, yours truly had an article published in Simulation & Gaming: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theory, Practice and Research. The particular print issue of the journal which the piece appears in won't be available for a few months, but I found out today that the article can be read online right now (subscription required). If the fusion of simulation games and Middle Eastern politics excites you, then this is your huckleberry!

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