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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta is attempting to go into damage control tonight in reaction to comments from Georges St-Pierre to Canadian media this week. The former UFC Welterweight Champion singled out the UFC's resistance to his attempts at improving drug testing and proving himself clean as one of the reasons he walked away.
His comments came off as quite damning of the UFC, and seemed to hint that he might be away from MMA for quite some time, if he comes back at all. Now Fertitta has reacted in a couple of different interviews on Tuesday night.
Speaking with ESPN.com, Fertitta said he was "shocked" by St-Pierre's comments, and tried to push the idea that the UFC's drug testing, along with the Nevada commission, was more than adequate.
"We've made it clear, through presentations at various athletic commissions, that we advocate for the most rigorous drug testing possible," Fertitta said. "We've actually advocated for harsher penalties for PEDs. Maybe Georges didn't understand the level of drug testing Nevada was doing. They are the ultimate authority that handles drug testing, medicals and everything else - and they are very capable."
"Obviously, we know there are some athletes that do cheat, but we are catching them. Hopefully, because the penalties for being caught have gone to the extent they have - monetary, suspensions, revocations of licenses - it's convincing these guys it's not worth it."
In a separate interview with Yahoo! Sports, Fertitta expressed more disappointment in St-Pierre's comments.
"We've always had an open line of communication with him and I'd like to know why he feels that way," Fertitta said. "It was extremely disappointing to hear Georges make those comments because I don't think any organization has embraced drug testing as we have. We have not only agreed to pay when the commission has said it wants to do enhanced testing, we've encouraged it. We have no problem with testing. When we serve as the commission [in areas out of the country where there is no commission], we test everyone on the card so we are thorough and there can be no claims of bias."
"Whatever a commission would want us to do in terms of testing, we would embrace it. We'll do as many as they want. I think perhaps Georges' people didn't communicate to him in detail everything we'd do as they tried to arrange the testing for the fight with him and Johny."
Penick's Analysis: St-Pierre's camp attempted to get clarification from the Nevada Athletic Commission that their random testing would cover everything VADA was testing for. It got twisted into them trying to find out what was being tested so they could get around it. Even after all of that, they agreed to any and all testing, and Keith Kizer decided to stop moving forward with it because one representative for St-Pierre wasn't going to be in office for a short time. That was even though testing wouldn't have begun for another month anyway. It was all twisted against St-Pierre, and Dana White's comments on the matter at the time didn't come off as supportive at all. And Nevada's normal testing, along with the UFC's day-of-event PED testing are not catching a majority of those using. They're just not, and with no random testing being done, the penalties aren't as big of a deterrent to using, just to getting caught. St-Pierre may just be getting started the way he was speaking and holding some things back, so don't expect this to be the last we hear on this front.
[GSP art by Travis Beaven (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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