Steroid scandal could destroy what UFC has built, By: Gregg Doyel
July 22, 2007
Et tu, UFC? And you? You stupid idiots. You shameless morons. You dumb, impatient, shortcut-seeking cheaters.
You?
Not you. Please, not you. Let Major League Baseball and the National Football League deal with the suspicions of steroids. Let the dopers of track and cycling turn their sports into shams. Let chemically created professional wrestlers become buffed to the point of buffoonery.
But not you, UFC. Not you.
Don't you realize the stakes? Don't you dipsticks see?
Mixed martial arts as a sport, and the UFC as its top franchise, cannot afford the growing steroid scandal that bubbled over late last week when lightweight champion Sean Sherk and the challenger he defeated, Hermes Franca, tested positive for steroids following their July 7 title bout. It wasn't one or the other who tested positive. It was both. That's beyond bad. That's terrifying.
The UFC is still trying to become mainstream in this country, and it's almost there. It's really, really freaking close to crossing over from niche sport to NASCAR. In recent months, UFC fighters have appeared on the covers of Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine. Pay-per-view events are selling huge numbers. TV events get great ratings. Coverage of UFC events is starting to trickle into the morning newspaper. HBO is considering an alliance.
The UFC has been rising up from the underground and emerging as this country's next great spectator sport. And I've been loving it. If you want to know where I stand, here you go: I love the UFC in particular and MMA in general -- Pride, the IFL, all of it. I covered UFC 68. I watch The Ultimate Fighter. I read Sherdog.com and rent old UFC events on video. I asked UFC lightweight contender Jorge Gurgel to choke me out, then wrote about it. Hell, I've been training at Gurgel's gym in West Chester, Ohio.
I love the UFC.
Which is why I cannot allow this to happen without screaming at someone -- at the fighters who have been caught cheating, at brilliant UFC president Dana White for going Bud Selig on us and letting this happen under his watch -- that THIS CANNOT CONTINUE.
MMA doesn't have the backing or history or popularity to handle a massive steroid controversy. Baseball can survive Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire because baseball has been around for more than 100 years. The NFL can survive Bill Romanowski and Shawne Merriman because the NFL has been this country's favorite sport for decades.
Track and cycling? They couldn't survive their doping controversies, at least not in this country, which helps explain why the average American could not care less about either sport despite the fact that American sprinters have usually held the title of world's fastest man, and despite U.S. cancer survivor Lance Armstrong's domination of cycling's biggest event.
In this country, the UFC is more track than football. It is a fringe sport trying to elbow its way past countless other fringe sports and into America's heart, alongside baseball, basketball, football and NASCAR. The UFC has a chance, too, because it has ferocious action with fantastic athletes and controlled violence and seductive marketing. The UFC could be the next great sport.
But not like this. Not if the unconverted among us rule it out because of steroids. Don't you see? There are millions of people predisposed to hate the UFC because of its violence, and a steroid scandal legitimizes their illegitimate position. The UFC is brutal but not dangerous, at least no more dangerous than boxing or football, but a steroid scandal allows the haters to marginalize the UFC as something akin to pro wrestling. Something for steroid freaks. Something not suitable for U.S. sports.
ESPN shows every ridiculous thing it can, from ballroom dancing to poker to spelling bees to rock-paper-scissors. But ESPN has not yet shown a UFC event, and a steroid scandal won't help. As much as ripping on ESPN has become a sport unto itself, ESPN is the tail that wags the dog of American sports. If you can't get on ESPN, you can't go mainstream. It's that simple.
And mixed martial arts can't go mainstream like this. Sherk and Franca aren't the only idiots who have tested positive for steroids. Legendary Royce Gracie, one of the founding fathers of this sport, tested positive in recent weeks. So did Phil Baroni. Other big-time MMA fighters to get caught have included Tim Sylvia, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Barnett, Kimo Leopoldo, Kevin Randleman, Vitor Belfort and converted NFL receiver Johnnie Morton.
That's a long list of drug cheats for a sport that, compared to baseball and football, has a small number of top competitors. It shouldn't have happened, but here we are. The UFC has come so close to breaking through, but now it could break down. That would break my heart, but sorrow is an emotion that will come later.
For now, I'm good and pissed off.
