The Doggy Bag: Overtime at the Lab Edition

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A friend of mine texted me after the Anderson Silva news broke and asked me if there was anyone in MMA not on the juice, I told him that nobody would surprise me any more and that I thought 95 percent of the top guys were on it. A day or two later, Jon Fitch of all people tests positive for elevated levels of testosterone. Nothing could have hammered my point home like that. -- Chris from New Jersey

Jordan Breen, administrative editor: Jonathan Parker Fitch, how could you?

Actually, I've got an educated guess. Fitch is 36-year-old former-great who is trying to make as much money as he can before he can no longer fight, and surprise of surprises, a 13-year MMA pro approaching middle aged doesn't produce as much testosterone any more. The man wants to recover, he wants to train like he used to, compete the way he did six years ago, he wants to make money -- he is after all the same things almost everyone else using performance enhancing drugs.

Of course, there is cruel irony, or at least major hypocrisy, here for Fitch. Less than two years ago, he's giving interviews like this where he says, “TRT is a joke devised to let guys who used steroids reboost their testosterone,” and brags his testosterone levels are as high as any young fighter. Clearly, Fitch has either changed his mind and or is a liar. Then again, he's guilty of the same lie that all fighters are forced to perpetuate. Ever notice how these stories break and fighters are all over Twitter, talking about how everybody in the sport is on steroids, except them and their immediate teammates? It's a sham.

Despite the bite of hindsight, Fitch might not end up tainted and mocked the way many fighters who pop for PEDs do. For some reason, when fighters with an entrenched legacy get embroiled in these things late in their careers, people tend not to remember or care. Do people routinely talk about Royce Gracie being juiced to the gills, his T:E ratio literally being too high for the lab's equipment to measure, for the rematch with Sakuraba? Do people care that Bas Rutten was full of painkillers when he came back for the WFA 4 debacle? Collective history seems to suggest not. Fitch might not be fondly remembered by the MMA masses, but he'll be condemned for his grinding UFC performances, not taking liberties with his hormones.

Honestly, I think the most troubling bit of the Jon Fitch news is that it is yet another story in which a fighter “cheating” was detecting in pre-fight screening, yet because of the logistics of relying on a testing laboratory, confirming the sample and having the results sent back and forth, it wasn't confirmed until seven weeks after the fight. I appreciate the fact that pre-fight drug test (or a series of them) is more about charting the profile and levels of an athlete over a training camp, up to and after a fight. However, it has quickly become an unfortunate norm in MMA that these “pre-fight” tests are routinely indicting and easily indicting major fighters, who then go on to fight, only to have the situation be reappraised afterward. If this is where we're at with supposed cheaters, is there no way to have these tests further in advance and be proactive?

Also, can Fitch pay his fine in bitcoin?

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