Georges St-Pierre Won’t Rat On PED Users In MMA
It’s been a difficult week for fans of MMA, as we’ve collectively began to accept the fact that steroids are rampant in the sport. Much like boxing and pro-wrestling, this new branch of combat sports is clearly not immune to cheating. Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has stood against PEDs (performance enhancing drugs), and even vacated his belt in pursuit of a cleaner sport.
The elephant in the room is definitely becoming more noticeable, and the fact that former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva got popped for steroids says it all. GSP spoke with Le Press De Montreal, giving his take on the news about “The Spider,” quotes from Yahoo:
“Like everyone else, I was surprised when I heard the news,” he said sarcastically, according to the interviewer.
“I don’t wish them any ill will; it’s terrible what happened to Anderson Silva – to his career, and also to him physically, it’s not my intention to bash anyone, either. I’m not a rat and I’ll never go public and name names to reporters. My only hope is that we deal with this [PED] problem,” St-Pierre said flatly. “I hope if one thing comes out of this, it’s that testing will be done more stringently.
I really don’t know [if this will prompt the UFC to increase out-of-competition drug testing],” St-Pierre said incredulously. “Maybe nothing will change. It depends on a lot of people.”
Silva’s failed drug test is certainly not the only one in recent times, but it’s without doubt the biggest in MMA/UFC history. What’s next for “The Spider” is uncertain, but his UFC 183 win over fellow drug test failee Nick Diaz is getting overturned.
It looks like all those cryptic interviews that St-Pierre gave when retiring were founded by a seedy undertone of drugs and PED users in MMA. On the upside, and there is one, this could be the beginning of a cleaner sport. The cost of that may be the end of many dirty careers, but overall it’s beginning to look like a necessary evil (if you could call it that) that will hopefully remove this massive black eye from the sport once and for all.
But that’s easier said than done, and rooting out widespread PED use in the sport of MMA is going to be a long and hard-fought battle that will most likely take years.
