ALL IS NOT LOST

ALL IS NOT LOST

Mixed martial arts (MMA) fans are a weird, neurotic, fatalistic bunch.  I say this as someone who spent his high school years frequenting Blockbuster Video in search of VHS copies of UFC events (clearly I was not too popular with the ladies).  This was years before the organization got big, or rather after it got big and was subsequently banished away from relevance by John McCain and other boxing cronies who deemed it barbaric and dangerous (while boxing, of course, is safe and refined).  

Guys like Pat Miletich, Frank Shamrock, Kevin Randleman, and Bas Rutten were my favorites in those dark days of MMA.  The UFC was forced out of many places where they tried to run shows, had the rules changed by state athletic commissions to dilute the product (even banning closed fists, which led to the worst fight of all time, an incredibly dull thirty-minute affair between Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn, a fight which almost single-handedly ruined the UFC), and faced outrage from the media and Congress.  Eventually, Bob Meyrowitz, the original owner, was forced to sell the UFC.  The buyers were the Fertitta brothers, Las Vegas casino heirs who were well connected, and who used those connections to get the sport widely regulated and back on pay per view.  The Fertittas’ money and courage (they were at one point down tens of millions of dollars in their UFC venture), along with Dana White’s charm and chutzpah as a charismatic front man, led the UFC back to relevance. 

The period in which the UFC’s existence is in doubt has passed, yet the fatalism remains.  One cause for such an attitude of resignation is the role of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in MMA.  Everyone has an opinion on questions concerning PEDs, on topics ranging from whether or not certain drugs deserve to be worthy of a suspension, to what percentage of fighters are on the sauce to whether fighters who juice should be banned from competition.  There is a fear that if too many high caliber fighters are found to be steroid users, that the public will turn on the sport, viewing it and its athletes as illegitimate (to say nothing of the idea, oft-espoused by MMA fans, that the sport’s best days are behind it, that the audience is overexposed, and that there are no new stars to sustain the UFC in the post-GSP/Anderson Silva/Brock Lesnar/BJ Penn/Liddell/Couture/Rampage/Rashad world). 

The past month has been a great time for critics of MMA.  In that period, Jon Jones, the best fighter in the sport, fresh off a dominating victory over two-time Olympic wrestler Daniel Cormier, tested positive for cocaine.  The reaction was mixed; cocaine is not a performance-enhancing drug, and actually has a negative effect on the body, as it lowers testosterone production.  In fact Jones’ testosterone levels were shockingly low; so low in fact that many suspected that he had used a masking agent to cover his own steroid use and make it seem that he had done nothing wrong.  The Nevada State Athletic Commission performed carbon isotope ratio testing to determine if a masking agent had in fact been used, and concluded that it had not, much to the relief of the UFC.  While cocaine is not a good thing to put into your system, Jones’ use of said substance did not impact his performance, and had the added bonus of creating a great deal of publicity for the UFC. 

Jones did an interview with Fox Sports on the subject in which he expressed his contrition; Dana White announced that Jones was going to rehab, his name was splashed all over ESPN, and Jon Jones became a full-on celebrity.  The pay per view numbers of his subsequent fights will benefit from how famous he has become; there is a curiosity factor about celebrities that is hard to ignore, and Jones’ celebrity clearly now reaches beyond MMA fans to the sports world at large, despite his personality (which can best be described as aloof, churlish, and hypocritical).

Now, with the shocking positive pre-fight drug test of Anderson Silva (and Nick Diaz’s positive post-fight marijuana test), the critics are at it again, convinced that this will in fact speed up MMA’s demise in America.  UFC pay per view buys are consistently down, and the few stars remaining in the company are cheaters (Anderson Silva, Vitor Belfort), drug users (like Jones and Diaz), unable to stay healthy (Chris Weidman, Cain Velasquez, Rashad Evans, and Dominick Cruz come to mind), or unable to draw pay per view buys (Demetrious Johnson, Jose Aldo, Renan Barao).   The UFC’s only true potential stars with room for growth are Conor McGregor (who the UFC must be praying will defeat Jose Aldo), Ronda Rousey (whose ability to headline a card that will draw pay per view buys is unknown), Robbie Lawler (room for growth because despite his veteran status, he has yet to defend his newly acquired title) and the spectacular, oft-injured Anthony Pettis (and we can’t forget the likely return of Brock Lesnar, which will lead to cries of joy in Las Vegas so loud that they will be audible all the way to Alaska). 

Despite legitimate criticism of the direction of MMA in America, of the UFC’s inability to make new stars, of the pervasive role of PEDs in the fight game, and of the credibility of various athletic commissions (more on that later), the UFC is not getting weaker.  Criticism of Anderson Silva, even criticism that makes the sport as a whole look bad (as Silva has often been considered someone above the fray of steroids, someone with too much natural talent and class to need to resort to cheating), is good for the UFC.  Having Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz’s failed drug tests on the front page of ESPN.com is good for business; it keeps the UFC in the public eye, and elevates the UFC to the same level as other major sports.  Diaz and Silva, if and when they give press conferences responding to the charges, will attract millions of eyeballs.  Even if Silva is viewed as a cheater, the public’s fascination with him will only grow, as it is likely he will use the excuse of his badly broken leg as the impetus for steroid use, in an effort to heal faster.  It is hard to not feel sorry for someone who suffered such a horrific injury, and has never before tested positive for steroids in a professional career lasting almost 20 years.  If Silva decides to fight again (an unknown at this point), it will be an event perhaps even bigger than Silva vs Diaz given the theme of redemption, and the affinity that fans feel for him. 

Nick Diaz will similarly benefit from Silva’s positive drug test, and his status as a counter-culture hero will grow with yet another positive marijuana test (his third—he has a medical marijuana card in California, but the Nevada State Athletic Commission does not care about that).  The fight will be changed to a no-contest, and Diaz can point to the fact that Anderson Silva, a man who dominated a former champion in Forrest Griffin at 205 pounds, needed steroids to win a decision against a guy in Diaz who has competed as low as 160 pounds.  Diaz’s ability to speak honestly, without any political correctness filter, has endeared him to fans.  Now that he is even more famous than he was when he agreed to fight Silva (between his amazing antics and trash talking during the fight, and now the publicity from the drug tests), his next fight, likely at 170, will be a huge draw.  If Diaz gets one win at 170, his subsequent fight will likely be for a title shot. 

The likely biggest loser from the positive drug test is not the UFC, but rather the NSAC.  The NSAC performed the blood test that Silva failed on January 9.  Somehow, despite the fight taking place January 31, a full three weeks later, the NSAC was unable to obtain results of the test until AFTER the fight.  This is a blood test which takes mere minutes to analyze, yet the NSAC couldn’t get results for almost a month.  Either you believe that the NSAC was incompetent and lazy, or you think that they wanted the fight to go on, fearing a show cancellation if the main event were lost, and wanting to get their share of the penalty they would receive (30% of the fighters’ purses, in this fight worth a cool $390,000 in fees to the NSAC). 

There are several ways this can play out, and a criminal investigation is possible, or at least would be if not in a cesspool like Nevada.  If the public outcry reaches a level at which the Attorney General feels inclined to investigate, phone records and emails will be examined, and it is likely that evidence of a cover-up would be discovered.  The odds suggest that the Nevada State Athletic Commissioner would resign in such a situation, and would avoid prison time.  If the evidence were to point to the UFC pressuring the NSAC to not release the results until after the fight, so as to make sure their event came to fruition, Dana White himself may be forced to resign.  Either way, the publicity would only make the UFC more mainstream, and would only increase pay per view buy rates.  The show will go on.