Cejudo: Failed PED test should be lifetime ban
Henry Cejudo: “I think it should be a lifetime ban to get caught with steroids, and you should get no pay, and you should go to jail. This is cheating, and it’s BS.”
The current standard penalty for failing a PED test is a one year suspension. This period has been reduced many times to nine months. In a sport where the elite fighters end up on average fighting twice a year, the current suspensions do not provide sufficient incentive to avoid PEDs.
Current WADA standards call for a four year ban for the first test failure, and life for the second. If that were applied to MMA, along with random, comprehensive, out of competition testing, the problem would be eradicated, one way or another.
And Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and UFC flyweight Henry Cejudo wants to make things even simpler – if you get caught doping, you are banned for life.
I think you have to smoke out the termites, said Cejudo to Mike Bohn for MMAjunkie. This isn’t baseball, and this isn’t football – this is mixed martial arts. Somebody could end up dying. I’m glad they’re doing something now because this sport could go into extinction if somebody starts taking steroids then beats the crap out of somebody in the cage and somebody doesn’t wake up.
I think people should go to jail for things like that. This is unfair. They’re a bunch of cheaters. I think it should be a lifetime ban to get caught with steroids, and you should get no pay, and you should go to jail. This is cheating, and it’s BS. You’re putting somebody else’s life jeopardy knowing you can out-power them and do it in an unfair manner.
(The UFC) should move as close to Olympic-style as possible. One time in wrestling I got tested nine times in a year in a half. It was a urine sample and blood. It was totally random. It was annoying, but you know what? It was worth it because I understood the people I was competing against had been tested. If I won or somebody beat me, it was always a fair match.
There was no question or doubt in my mind that (in MMA) somebody was taking drugs or getting an advantage to beat me.
Henry Cejudo fights Chris Cariaso on Saturday, March 14, at UFC 185 in Dallas, Texas.
