Matt Brown: 5 year suspension for 1st PED fail
Matt Brown: “The #1 thing to do is harsher penalties. First offense, five-year ban .. That’s going to sway a lot of guys. It’s going to turn a lot of guys away from doing it.”
Mixed martial arts as an institution is coming to harsh grips with performance enhancing drugs. The latest figure to fall is of course the greatest fighter in the league’s history, former middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Increased random, comprehensive, out-of-competition testing is part of the battle. Another part is Athletic Commissions upping the penalty from the standard twelve month suspension (or nine months with a cool story).
A urine test only, at a known date and time (characteristically weigh in day or fight day), is something closer to an IQ test than a PED test. And in a sport where the elite fight twice a year on average, a nine month or twelve month suspension does not provide a sufficient deterrent.
In an interview with The Shoot, UFC welterweight Matt “The Immortal” Brown called for far tougher penalties.
“My thoughts on the steroid controversy, I’m glad to hear that the UFC is doing things about the steroids,” said Brown as transcribed by David St. Martin for MMAfighting. “The No. 1 thing to do is harsher penalties. First offense, five-year ban. Yea, that’s going to sway a lot of guys.’
“It’s going to turn a lot of guys away from doing it. You’d have to really, really turn yourself around to be able to come back from that. You’d be forgot about and that’s the way it should be. You should be forgotten about.
“If you’re going to take steroids you should be forgotten about. If it’s against the rules, it’s against the rules. The fact is it’s cheating. Harsher penalties is the way to go.”
Less than six months ago, Anderson Silva voiced a similar sentiment.
“When the guys test for the steroids, no more fights,” said Silva. “When you use the steroids, you use them for a long time. When you use the steroids for a long time, you have a problem. It’s a drug and it’s not good for the sport.”
WADA currently calls for a four-year suspension for the first failure. Second test failure is a life ban.
Matt Brown fights former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks on March 14 at UFC 185 in Dallas, Texas.
