Abusers and the Abused: Steroids and MMA

By Josh Stein on Feb 10, 2009

When I hear a discussion about the use of steroids in MMA, there are a few stories that immediately jump to mind and make me consider the future of mixed martial arts. The revelations about professional baseball players abusing steroids as a way to enhance performance has opened up a very interesting debate (and a poll at fightticker that is worth checking out).

Karo Parisyan’s recent bust for what seems to be a pain killer cocktail (though I don’t know a great deal about the medicinal effect) is certainly going to offer an important talking point, but it seems to me that there are more important examples, and a few jump to mind fairly quickly.

Josh Barnett, Mark Kerr, Thiago Alves and Tim Sylvia make for interesting anecdotes and offer some insight into the nature of steroid and drug abuse as well. What is more important, though, at least in my opinion, is the impact that a widespread acceptance (or at least understanding) of the power steroids have on athletics would have on MMA.

The first thing that we should acknowledge, for the sake of intellectual honesty, is that there’s a reason baseball players, and other athletes, abuse steroids. They work.

Some people will say that you need relaxation and technical skills for MMA. You need to have flexibility and cardio and those are things that you can’t get from a needle. While there’s some truth to that, it’s important to acknowledge that by drastically increasing muscle recovery and helping to add muscle mass and strength, as well as having an impact on weight cuts (as was suspect in the incident with Thiago Alves), mixed martial artists have a huge amount to gain by abusing drugs that are prohibited by the legal authorities that regulate the sport.

That’s not a defense of steroid abuse, that’s a fact that needs to be stated if we are to understand the debate.

Steroids are terrible for the fighters long term health (and sometimes even their short term health) and this is a travesty, but in a sport where there isn’t much money and there is a huge amount of pressure to succeed at the highest levels, to fight in the UFC, to make a name as a contender and then to win a title, hearing that you can have longer, better workouts and not be as sore afterwards is a huge weight to lift.

The problem is that fighters shouldn’t be penalized for caring about their long term health, and the roll of the athletic commission should be to protect the health of the fighter, even when they don’t want themselves protected. Josh Barnett and Tim Sylvia are off of the banned substances now, and it’s almost certainly better for their bodies, even if their performance in the ring isn’t what it might be if they were shooting up once a week.

I would speak about the obligation of the fans to protecting the health of the fighters, but it does me no good to pound an imaginary pulpit. This is not a debate that we, as fans, play a major roll in. Just as fans may be outraged in professional baseball, it’s not as though they can shriek that the quality of their product has suffered as a result of substance abuse.

What we, as fans, need to be aware of is that this is expressly an issue between the bodies that govern the sport and the athletes that compete. A fighter may endanger his opponent by using steroids, because he has given himself an edge and tweaked his hormon levels in a way he doesn’t entirely understand, but the fight fan is not worried about that, just as the fan is not worried about an injury the fighter might have sustained before the fight.

The concern of the fan is the fight itself, which is why we have a commission, which is why there is a regulating body. Normally I invoke the fans to demand something, but this is one time when it isn’t our place to cry out or complain. We can have our opinions, we can have a dialogue, but when push comes to shove, this is an aspect of the sport that is beyond our reach, and perhaps it is good that it is, because we wouldn’t want to be responsible for the many failures that will undoubtedly come.

Filed Under: MMA

Tags: Josh Barnett • Karo Parisyan • Mark Kerr • Steroids • Thiago Alves • Tim Sylvia

About the Author: Joshua Stein is a writer and editor for MMA Opinion. He has worked as a photographer and journalist and has a number of print journalism credits. He also works as a moderator for MMAForum.com and a grappling columnist (covering judo, collegiate wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and submission grappling) for profighting-fans.com.