UFC
Lorenzo Fertitta says UFC plans to randomly test all 500 fighters on their roster multiple times a year
Oct 1, 2014 - 9:30:04 PM Lorenzo Fertitta says UFC plans to randomly test all 500 fighters on their roster multiple times a year

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The UFC appears to be moving towards legitimate action to curb the rampant use of performance enhancing drugs by fighters on their roster. Instead of simply paying lip service to the issues, the UFC is going to be implementing random testing to their entire roster going forward.

That's according to UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta, who said on Wednesday's UFC Tonight program on Fox Sports 1 that the random testing program they plan to implement will affect every fighter on their roster.

"Well, actually it's becoming less of a problem, because we have really stepped up our game as far as testing," Fertitta said (transcribed by MMAFighting.com). "So for these athletes there's nowhere to hide. The first step was working with the various athletic commissions to make sure we had testing for the night of the fight, for every fighter on the card. Whereas it used to be years ago, it was more of a random basis. They would test the main event and maybe some of the others fighters. We said, you know what, we'll pay for it - we'll test everybody on the card."

"And then as some of these performance enhancing drugs started to maybe evolve and get better, it's harder to test for some of those drugs, because they were out of your system apparently quickly," he continued. "So we started to implement random testing. Working with the Nevada State Athletic Commission and funding that testing protocol."

"Now the next step for us, and what we're working on, is a complete project where we will randomly test all 500 of our athletes multiple times per year. We're working on that. It's going to be a comprehensive plan. And you know what? At the end of the day, if you're cheating, we will catch you. You will get suspended, possibly fined, and we take it very serious. Because... our fans want to make sure our sport is clean [and] I think the athletes want the sport to be clean. The clean athletes want the sport to be clean."

Penick's Analysis: There are still a lot of things to work out in regards to this type of program, not the least of which is how punishment will be doled out, what type of appeals process fighters might be able to expect, whether there will be uniform rules as far as punishment is concerned, etc. That said, this is a needed thing going forward if there's going to be any chance at curbing the very real problem they're facing in this sport right now on that front.