Picture yourself standing in front of a futuristic touch screen, with only two buttons pictured on the display. You’re in a dark room and therefore free to press either one without incident, while maintaining complete autonomy.
Touching the green button on the left will mean that nothing changed since Anderson Silva fought and lost twice to the new UFC middleweight champion in Chris Weidman. Pressing the red button on the right will see Anderson Silva remaining on the throne with his record intact (along with his leg) and the most important legacy in the sport up to this point, assuredly prolonged, at least for a little longer heading in to 2014.
But pressing the button will mean that his path will eventually intersect with choosing to seek out a doctor where he is given a therapeutic use exception (TUE) to take testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). This is legal, anyone can do it, and if Anderson Silva is one of your all-time favorite fighters like he is mine, then why would most of us harbor a sick feeling if we were standing in front of the magical iPad of futures past?
But it’s legal! It’s legal and therefore anything legal should feel completely right, right? It’s because not too far deep down, we know it isn’t right. If it’s a medical condition, then why do men who should be at a epitestosterone ratio of 1-1, allowed to jack it up to 6-1? Because that’s exactly what TRT does folks. Why do fighters who have a history of abusing steroids, use it? Why do fighters who participate in the use of TRT make sure they use it religiously before every training camp?
If the buttons only allowed Silva to drink more protein shakes to pull off the wins and remain undefeated in the UFC, I wouldn’t hesitate in breaking my finger off by repeatedly mashing the exact button, efficiently ensuring that when he woke up to start his training camp for UFC 162 last year, opening his door with the intent on starting his training regimen at black house, he would find himself standing in front of a sea of protein shake boxes, neatly stacked up 100 feet high around his property.
Of course nothing has definitively proven TRT single handedly wins fights. If that was the case, then Anderson Silva would have lost many times before running in to Weidman. Hell, most of Silva’s opponents have either been busted for elevated testosterone levels after fighting him or during earlier points in their careers. Chael Sonnen, Stephan Bonner, Dan Henderson, Chris Leben, Nate Marquardt and Vitor Belfort have all been busted before.
Let’s get rid of it. At the end of the day if UFC fighters feel they can’t perform without TRT, then they shouldn’t be allowed to load themselves up with six times the normal levels of their opponents. They should be given the option to fight clean or retire.
A lot of us haven’t made up our minds on the issue and I think that’s a problem when you consider the state of MMA. Like an infant, it’s going to learn and develop as it grows and matures. Make no mistake, your opinion matters, dear reader, because just like how we as fans learn from the sports we love, so too do sports take cues from their fans.
What MMA learns today will only manifest into something unchangeable in the future, something like major league baseball is dealing with right now. They simply have a problem with rampant steroid use, where in our sport of mixed martial arts, only a few fights here and there are ruined by steroid use, at least for now.
Fans love home runs and steroids allowed baseball players to blast the ball out of the ball park at a higher rate than when they were smaller with less swinging power. If fans had been less predisposed to overlooking steroid use at the expense of homeruns, there would be a less incentive for baseball players to juice up. Unfortunately after hundreds of years of honor and dignity, it looks like America’s favorite pastime is forever marred by the stigma of drug use and cheating.
If Belfort hadn’t used TRT and wound up not going on an impressive tear over the last few years, he probably wouldn’t be fighting for the title, and fans would clearly love him less. That’s not his fault, it’s ours. It sends a direct message to future fighters on the positives of using TRT and not any of the downsides. But the downsides do exist.
If Belfort hadn’t used TRT, regardless of its perceived impact now, he very well could be on the same winning streak and would vicariously be getting all the credit for his age defying rise to the title. Consider how it looked when he championed his faith in God as the strength behind his recent success in the cage, when it clearly looks like his faith is a sham he uses to hide behind his use of steroids during competition.
This issue desperately needs to be explored, but carefully. In the same vein as brain study efforts being conducted by the Cleveland Clinic and championed by those in the fight game, someone needs to create a study on TRT and the merits behind its use. Do fighters need it and does it give competitors a dangerous edge over their opponents?
It’s fruitless to point fingers at anyone who abused steroids in the past, went over on TRT, or even to turn one’s E.T. phone home sign in the direction of Dana White and the Fertittas. In fact, Dana doesn’t want TRT in his sport! But as long as it’s legal, he chooses not to fight it, and why blame him?
“Yup. No no no no no. If TRT is done away with, TRT is done away with,” said Dana at a UFC 169 presser recently when asked about if he would allow TRT if athletic commissions chose to outlaw or keep it. “Right now the commission allows TRT, so we allow TRT, it’s what we do. Gone? Gone. And I want it gone.”
Fighters on TRT say they need it for their personal safety of course. I doubt anyone has ever been approached by one of their young athletic closest friends with an admonition of low testosterone, and not out of shame, but out of the lack of shear necessity.
I get it if you’re 70, but 35 and in the best shape of your life as a professional athlete? Maybe Vitor Belfort’s hair is turning gray and with the aid of TRT he’s now able to grow a full beard, but he’s clearly pushing the limits of his “medical condition,” when he showed up to fight Michael Bisping at UFC on FX 7 the January before last and everyone saw a noticeable difference in his muscle tone.
Speaking of Belfort, fighters won’t even fight him unless it’s in the U.S. because regardless of his talk about his faith in Jesus, he’s just not honest about his TRT use and since Brazil’s drug testing procedures aren’t exactly hammered in stone, why take the risk of fighting a roided out monster?
After Luke Rockhold knocked out Costas Philippou at UFC Fight Night 35 recently, he called out the man to have knocked him out last in Belfort, providing it was in the U.S., and not Brazil. It’s sad because especially in Belfort’s case, he didn’t even admit to being on TRT. Is his ethical code as big a joke as his faith in God? Apparently.
We shouldn’t settle for half-truths or complete lies in this sport. If no one can honestly point out why TRT is necessary for professional athletes to train and compete with, then it should be banned until more information is disseminated, but not until exactly that moment where some sense can be made out of it.
If the title of this article pisses you off, then don’t say something to me, tell it to Dana White and all the fighters who currently hold the spot light in the sport. Spread the word, “we don’t appreciate TRT use in MMA.”
If none of this happens, then we will eventually be forced to embrace TRT, and so will our champions and all the future contenders, and everything that was built will be lost.