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On the Tuesday before UFC 73, I was on the phone with a friend who works with a top mixed martial arts champion. The person understands the pro wrestling business well. I asked them if MMA has a similar drug culture to professional wrestling.
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My friend didn't deny there are MMA fighters who use and abuse drugs but did deny that MMA has an open drug culture like pro wrestling (a culture where fanboy doctors are willing to hand out prescription drugs like a person would sell stamps at a post office).
After I ended the conversation, the California State Athletic Commission announced that they had suspended Phil Baroni for a full year due to testing positive for two steroids -- boldenone and stanozolol.
"The drug cultures in both MMA and (professional) wrestling are similar," said Las Vegas-based MMA writer Mike Sawyer. "Guys are going to juice and find a way to beat the test. You have to be a real idiot to fail a drug test these days."
Thursday, both UFC lightweight champion Sean Sherk and challenger Hermes Franca failed steroid tests (Sherk for nandralone, Franca for drostanolone) given at UFC 73 in Sacramento.
Abused substances, fighters and ... horses?
Boldenone is an anabolic steroid for horses that is supposed to be available only through veterinary clinics. Boldenone is also a drug that has a long half-life, meaning the drug can be detectable for as long as five months in a person's system. Somehow, it's magically a common steroid that MMA fighters are caught using when they fail their pre- and post-fight drug tests. The Nevada State Athletic Commission has suspended high-profile fighters (Stephan Bonnar, Josh Barnett and Kit Cope) for allegedly testing positive for the substance in previous drug tests. Bonnar and Cope admitted that they used boldenone, while Barnett proclaimed his innocence.
What would be the publicly-given reason for Phil Baroni's failed drug test? Contaminated supplements made in China? A faulty drug test? Someone knowingly switching his regular supplements with bad ones to get revenge on him?
In a statement to Fight Network Radio, Baroni's agent, Ken Pavia, stressed his client didn't knowingly take steroids.
"If you walk into Phil's kitchen, it's a veritable GNC," Pavia said. "He takes numerous over-the-counter, legal supplements. The only thing we can surmise is that something triggered a positive test. A number of things are in place right now that hopefully will clear his name and show that he didn't knowingly do anything. Hopefully, we'll show that it was either an incorrect test or it was a false positive triggered by something else."
It seems our equine friends from the horse tracks have been supplying bodybuilders, professional wrestlers and mixed martial artists with all sorts of inspiration for wonderful dietary aids.
Clenbuterol is a drug prescribed by doctors to asthmatic patients (usually in the form of an inhaler) and also dangerously abused by both athletes and Hollywood stars as a rapid weight loss drug. In a November 2006 HealthWatch segment on CBS' The Early Show, Hollywood fitness trainer Jackie Warner was asked about clenbuterol and was quoted as saying, "I hear it a lot in my gym, and it's a dangerous drug."
That same year, there was a massive outbreak of food poisoning in Shanghai, China, among residents who ate pork that was contaminated with clenbuterol. Chinese farmers reportedly raised pigs with it in order to produce leaner pork meat. And the Food and Drug Administration issued a press release warning horse owners and veterinarians about the deaths of horses in Louisiana that were caused by illegal clenbuterol HCL supplements. Clenbuterol is considered a banned substance in most drug tests.
