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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
While Randy Couture may not think MMA has a PED problem, many more are on the opposite end of that. At the forefront of outspoken critics of PED users in MMA is UFC middleweight Tim Kennedy, and he spoke out again this weekend in an interview with Fight Opinion Radio.
"I'm this outspoken proponent against [doping]. I've begged and pleaded, even tried to take a stand saying, 'hey, I'm not going to fight unless I'm randomly blood tested.' And, um, guess what? I haven't been randomly drug tested yet!" he frustratedly commented. "I asked the commission if we could, for this fight me and Yoel both be tested, and we got 'your request has been received and we will look into it.' Right now, I could be using every single steroid on the planet. Right now, I could have been injecting myself this morning and I would still be clean by fight."
"I get so much crap from everybody. Like, shut up pussy, why don't you just use it yourself and actually have an exciting fight? It's non-stop relentless, especially from Vitor fans or Chael Sonnen fans," he continued. "Listen, I get it. They're fun to watch. But so was Sammy Sosa and so was Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire. They almost destroyed the sport of baseball. Those three dudes alone almost ruined baseball."
"That's where we are right now in the sport. We're in the Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire era where it's just rampant, crazy use of PEDs. And Mark [Bocek] that just retired, you know, he's saying up to 90%. I said around 30%. Okay, fine, we'll split it, like split the difference. That's crazy! That is a huge problem. And we're not hitting a ball out of a park. We're hitting each other in the head. This is a little different. So the standards should be different and it's not. It's worse. Something's got to give."
Penick's Analysis: Something's definitely got to give, and it's going to if the UFC doesn't follow through with an increase in testing. There should be random drug testing done for a large number of fighters, and it's just not being done right now. Will that actually change? Hopefully, but it's hard to be confident in things getting implemented on a widespread basis given past history with the UFC in this area.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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