"The problem in MMA right now is the UFC is the one that everyone knows about. When you talk to people about the sport, especially fans, they say, 'Yeah, I'm gonna go train UFC.' And I understand what they are saying, but they are saying it wrong. So with them being the one under the microscope, anything that goes wrong, we're all gonna know about it. They are the biggest promotion in MMA. The problem comes when within months of each other, you have two big superstars get popped for drugs, illegal drugs, in their system," stated former UFC title challenger Frank Trigg, who shared his thoughts on the increasing number of high-profile UFC fighters testing positive banned substances. Check out what else he had to say!
FRANK TRIGG:
So one, Jon Jones, because he is a superstar, he goes and does 24 hours in a rehab and it's okay, and Anderson Silva gets popped and they are waiting on an appeal and just kind of waiting on the system, but it wasn't the organization that pulled him from TUF Brazil; it was the commission. Now you have your greatest superstar of all time, his career is in question. Then you have a repeat offender, Nick Diaz, who gets popped with metabolites of marijuana in his system. Whatever the levels you can have, he was over it. But he pops too and you cut him immediately saying he didn't follow protocol. Well, you have two fighters in that same fight test positive and they should go through the same process. You should stand behind both of them or neither of them, but they won't do that. It sends a message to every fighter out there that if you are a moneymaker and you make them money, you are untouchable. You can do whatever you want and get away with it.
When Diaz got popped when he fought Gomi in Pride, I talked to Keith Kizer, who was over the commission in Nevada then, and I told him, "I don't think marijuana is a performance enhancer." He said, "At the levels that Diaz had in him, it was a performance enhancer." I said, "How is that possible? I don't understand." He says, "Gomi hit him with a straight left that split his forehead open. He hit him hard. That same left that Gomi hit guys with dropped them and hurt them badly. He hits Diaz with that left hand and Diaz had the awareness to put a Gogoplata on him and finish him." Kizer believed that he had so much weed in his system that he didn't feel the punch. So he feels where everyone else's brain would shut down, he didn't feel the punch so his brain didn't shut down. So he felt it was a performance enhancer because for one, he was so numb, he couldn't feel the damage, and two, because it puts his life at risk because he could take that kind of damage and not feel it until later. And that was the bigger problem. But the amount he got caught with the last time against Silva, it would have done nothing for him. So I get it, he should be held accountable. He's a repeat offender and he should know better at this point, so I understand the frustration from the media and fans about him knowing better, but in punishing him, you have to watch what kind of use you're promoting.
Another thing I have a problem with is they aren't even telling these guys they are failing the test until afterwards. Not only did Cormier not know about Jones testing positive, but they didn't even tell Jones that he tested positive. He should have known he tested positive and he didn't until the fight was over. The handling of that was very strange to me. They kept the fact that he failed very private and very quiet. It only takes 4 or 5 days to get those results back, but what the Nevada commission did was basically say he failed his test, but it was out of competition and we don't really care about using cocaine out of competition. Well then, my question becomes, why do they test for it then? If you're not gonna hit them with something that you're testing for, then why test them for it?
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