The Fight Network

Two years ago I talked to Josh Barnett for several hours, preparing for a section in my book that ultimately was cut when Randy Couture remixed the movie Rocky Balboa at UFC 68 and Barnett-Nogueira had to make way and make space. Barnett was funny, engaging, smart, and open.  He was also, seemingly, lying.  He told me, clearly, that he hadn't used steroids in 2002 when he was busted by the Nevada State Athletic Commission after his UFC 36 fight with Couture.  He wasn't just innocent, he was a man wronged.  Even at the time, he and his trainer Matt Hume were adamant that he was innocent, that the UFC was out to get him. Right or wrong, today's revelation that Barnett has again tested positive for drugs leaves me with little doubt he was guilty in 2002 as well.

The use of performance enhancing drugs is complicated.  Many people don't understand why society has an interest in preventing people from reaching their athletic peak.  And make no mistake, steroids help.  Look at the athletes from Japan's gone-but-not-forgotten PRIDE Fighting Championship.  I'm not accusing all PRIDE fighters of doping-but when we saw these explosive, muscular, dynamic athletes in the Octagon for the first time, they, to a man, looked different.  Slower.  Flabbier.  Less explosive.  Drugs work.  They also have a long term health impact and that is the issue.  If someone is using steroids, everyone in his division better be using them too.  They need to be, or they will be at a real competitive disadvantage.  

B.J. Penn put it succinctly in an interview with MMAWeekly Radio prior to his fight with drug cheat Sean Sherk.

"Everybody has questioned my heart, questioned my training ethics, this and that, but I never did something as cowardly as to take any sports enhancement drug," Penn said. "That's one thing no one can ever say about me, you know? That I was a coward and took sports enhancement drugs, because I was afraid I was going to get my ass kicked in front of millions of people. So anybody out there who said I never had no heart, at least I wasn't a coward." 

For years, fighters like Barnett have known exactly when the tests were coming.  Only the stupid and the greedy would be caught because savvy fighters could simply cycle off the drugs just prior to the week of the fight.  This was different.  Barnett was the first victim of California's new out of competition testing.  He was forced out of bed three weeks ago and asked to pee in a bottle.  He likely knew he was in a lot of trouble; the timing was all
wrong for a steroid user looking to cycle off before a fight.  Barnett was a fish in the barrel. 

Now that they have their first big game, California (and Nevada if testing has any chance of working) has to continue testing, year round.  It's the only way to minimize drug abuse and the only way to protect fighters who don't want to dope, promoters like Affliction who are now in a very rough spot, and the fans who deserve better.