Werdum argues USADA is too strict
Fabricio Werdum: “I think that this testing is too much, too strict. It didn’t have to be that much.”
Up until the advent of USADA, everyone understood that mixed martial arts had a PED problem, and that something more needed to be done about it. However, random, comprehensive, out of competition testing is not simple.
If testing is limited to the weekend of the fight, fighters can and did schedule their drug use so that it would show clear on test day. And the testing was usually urine only, which is easier to beat than blood. Failing under those conditions is more an IQ test than a PED test. But for testing to be random, a fighter’s whereabouts has to always be known, and if a fighter fails to let USADA know where they are, that can trigger a test.
Comprehensive testing means blood and urine, for both PEDs and drugs that have no effect on performance but can be used to mask PEDs. An IV too can be used to mask PEDs, and BJ Penn, a huge anti-doping advocate, was suspended and had a fight delayed for that.
And there is no way around it. Either testing is random, comprehensive, and out of competition, in which case, there can be suspensions for innocuous things like an IV or not letting USADA know where you are 24/7/365. Or it’s not.
However, from the perspective of a fighter, it can feel like a bit too much. Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum spoke recently with the ever excellent Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting and discussed fellow former champ Junior Dos Santos who was pulled recently from a fight with Francis Ngannou at UFC 215. JDS’s team identified source the test failure as “low levels” of the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide, which they deny taking at all.
“I think it’s a pity that this happened, but we have to wait for the second test,” said JDS. “We don’t get along because we fought in the past, but there’s no reason to say anything bad about him. That can happen to anyone, to unknowingly take something that is banned. I have no right to say anything about this case. We have to wait for the the second test to find out if he really took something… If he really took something he has to pay for it without fighting for a while, which is a pity.
Werdum has been tested four times this year, and eight times last year.
“I think that this testing is too much, too strict, he said. “It didn’t have to be that much. It’s one thing to take something to recover faster… I’m not saying steroids, no. What I say is that USADA is too much sometimes. It’s too much. It didn’t need that much. This testing is stricter than the Olympics. I’ve never seen this before. I think it could be better. There are things that you could take that wouldn’t affect your performance, but you would recover faster. We train too hard.
Unfortunately, Werdum is factually incorrect.Fighters don’t take PEDs so that they magically grow, they take PEDs so they recover faster from training. The reason athletes train is so performance increases. If a drug helps you recover faster, you can train more, and it’s a performance enhancing drug, and thus precisely what should be tested for.
Werdum is also upset with the 18-month suspension that Lyoto Machida received when he declared he was taking an over the counter supplement that listed and contained 7-keto-dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), the performance benefits of which are questionable.
“Anyone is subject to going through this, said Werdum. “Sometimes it’s not even something you take knowing it’s illegal, but you unknowingly take something in your supplement. It’s tough. We have to call and check everything you take all the time, anything you eat or any supplement you take. It can happen to anyone.
“When you talk about doping people think of the extreme of the extreme right away, but it’s not like that. Sometime it’s pretty simple, like what happened to Lyoto. It was really unfair, and he stayed away for almost two years because he said he took something [he didn’t know was banned]. That was absurd.”
Machida returns from suspension vs. Derek Brunson at UFC Fight Night 119 on October 28. Dos Santos is in the beginning stages of the process, the next step of which is the B sample testing coming back.
