The Throwdown 08.10.07: Pu-Pump It Up!
Posted by Jon Hartley on 08.10.2007
Another MMA drug use column?! Yes, but in this rant, 411's Jon Hartley plays devil's advocate and explains why not all steroid violations are created equal. Also, why do fighters keep using banned substances when they surely know they'll be caught? These questions and more will be answered, plus the return of The Throwdown Top 10's, including three number one fighters who are not Pride or UFC Champions!
I do the same thing you do. I get onto the internet, check my MMA news sites, and then shake my head. "Another fighter tests positive? What are these guys thinking?" The recent rash of positive tests and subsequent suspensions is possibly the worst, as both UFC Lightweight Champion Sean Sherk and his recent challenger, Hermes Franca, have tested positive for banned substances.
Ah, "banned substances". An eye-rolling (or nausea inducing, depending on your stance) term that has become as much a part of MMA fandom as "arm bar" or "Thai clinch". Following the sport is no longer just about pooling money with friends for UFC pay-per-views, trading for old Shooto tapes or zonking out at your computer listening to "Beatdown" on Sherdog. Now, to be an avid fan requires poring over drug test results, hoping not to find your favorite fighter's name, or avidly searching for medical suspension information and investigating the free agent bidding for (insert former Pride standout's name here). MMA hasn't just gotten more complicating for fighters, with the worn-out cliches and dime-a-dozen "you have to train in everything nowadays" quotes still very much applicable, but fans have found that following the sport is just as demanding and at times, yes, disappointing.
Remember UFC 1? When Royce Gracie subbed the massive Ken Shamrock in relatively short order, many things went through the heads of observers; "that guy's gotta be on roids" was not one of them. Now, such feats are under constant scrutiny, and comic book physiques like the one Sherk proudly sports are debated endlessly among fans in message board threads. Indeed, the MMA landscape is almost recognizable to what veteran fans remember from "the early days".
The variety of explanations (excuses?) we get from besmirched athletes is almost as vast as the variety of substances they get caught using. Fighters have tested positive for everything from Boldenone and Nandrolone to Drostanalone and Stanozolol, and offered every response from not knowing they took steroids or having used tainted supplements to claiming test inaccuracies or even just admitting they knowingly used them. Among those who have fessed up are Tim Sylvia, as well as Franca. Sylvia took an anabolic steroid that enhances appearance more than performance; he wanted to fit the mold of "UFC poster boy" after winning his first Heavyweight Championship. Franca injured himself in training, but felt that he would be better off aiding his recovery with a banned substance than miss a paycheck and title shot, so he took a chance.
There are many misconceptions about steroids, one of them is that taking them instantly transforms one into a behemoth, when in fact many steroids simply allow athletes to train more vigorously, as their muscles recover faster than they normally would. Others, like Boldenone Metabolite, which Stephan Bonnar tested positive for, help athletes recover from injuries quickly.
You can begin to see why there is a problem with steroid use in MMA once you understand how steroids work. Fighters have to train extremely hard, and unlike other professional athletes, do not get paid to be on a team or to sit on the disabled list. Franca came right out and admitted it: as a mid-tier UFC fighter he simply couldn't afford financially to miss a fight, especially a title fight. The UFC signs virtually all its fighters to exclusive contracts, and plans its events months in advance. If a fighter is faced with missing a few weeks of training, he has to make the decision whether to go into a fight less than 100% or to withdraw and not get another fight for possibly several months. If you're a full-time fighter making, say, $10,000 per bout, this presents a conundrum that has more and more fighters rolling the dice when it comes to banned substances.
I'm not a nutritionist and will not go into the "I didn't know my supplements had x or y banned substance in it" argument in depth, but after seeing Sean Sherk's training regimen and specifically the amazing number of pills he takes daily, it's not hard for me to believe that a less than astute fighter could easily ingest something that he shouldn't. Combine the blind reliance on personal trainers and nutritionists with an ever-growing laundry list of banned substances, and its clear that fighters have to resist the urge to delegate their supplement choices to others, or face the possible repurcussions.
The funny thing about steroid use is that it far from ensures a victory. In a column I wrote not long ago in response to Stephan Bonnar's positive test, I cited the below-.500 record of fighters in the UFC who have tested positive for anabolic agents, and that trend doesn't appear to be changing. Hey, Royce Gracie didn't exactly set the world on fire in his recent Nandrolone-aided effort against Kazushi Sakuraba. Clearly, steroids don't automatically make you a much better fighter. Even in baseball, for every Barry Bonds there's several Sergio Garcias.
Like it or not, Dana White does have a point when he says, "should I call everybody every day and say...'don't do steroids?' It's common sense." While testing more fighters would obviously shed light on more steroid users and give fighters less incentive to take a chance, on the prevention side of things, what more can Dana or any other promoter do? Most of the time, fighters seem to either knowingly use banned substances or use them simply because they aren't careful enough about what they put into their bodies. You could start banning fighters for life for steroid use, and there would still be a fighter somewhere who would use them. Perhaps if fans and fighters alike start realizing that steroids aren't magic pills that instantly make you a world champion, they would be less of a problem in MMA.
Quick Thoughts
--Among the afore-mentioned changes that the MMA explosion has caused is the cost of being a truly knowledgeable fight fan. A few years ago, if you caught the UFC and Pride shows every two to three months and went out of your way to keep up with Shooto or Pancrase a bit, you were pretty much up to date. Now, there are more shows each year promoted by the UFC alone than there were total shows by major promoters five years ago. Even with the evaporation of Pride, you have the IFL and WEC regularly on television, and fans must suffer through terribly amateurish productions by Bodogfight and abominations like the recent U.S. K-1 show as well. Have fans taken the abundance of MMA on cable TV for granted? I think they have, myself included.
--I love what the WEC is doing for lighter weight classes...or rather, what the UFC is using the WEC to do for lighter weight classes. I was skeptical of the UFC-WEC relationship early on, especially when Versus was only showing massively-delayed clips of fights rather than live shows, but things are looking much better now, and with fighters like Urijah Faber, the WEC can be a big promotion if they can only make more fans aware of them. Hopefully, next time around, I'll rank some of the lighter weight classes instead of stopping at lightweight, but for now, I simply don't want to do it if I'm not knowledgeable enough about the fighters in them. Which brings us to...
The Return of the Throwdown MMA Top Ten Rankings
Longtime readers will remember than after listing the ten fighters in each weight class, I'll explain some of my rationale and/or insanity...the same longtime readers will wonder if I was kidnapped by angry Brazilian Top Team supporters, explaining my hiatuses. Also, please note that I do not rank fighters solely on what they've done! Anybody can say "Gonzaga beat Cro Cop, he deserves to be higher on the list", but that is not what a subjective ranking is all about. Plus, if you get into MMAth, as many like to call it, you end up with all sorts of problems. What order do you rank Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson and Wanderlei Silva in under that philosophy? No, my rankings reflect what a fighter has done as well as what I think he is capable of doing. I depend on fighters to justify my rankings of them rather than waiting for them to prove their ranking and merely reacting to that. There is a happy medium to be had, and hopefully my rankings toe the line appropriately. Of course, I'm sure you'll all let me know if that's not the case. Now, let's get on with it!
Heavyweight (206-265 lbs.)
1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera
3. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic
4. Josh Barnett
5. Gabriel Gonzaga
6. Randy Couture
7. Tim Sylvia
8. Andrei Arlovski
9. Aleksander Emelianenko
10. Brandon Vera
Notes: Ah, Fedor. No brainer of no brainers, how easy you make it for MMA columnists and fans alike. Isn't it great that we can all agree? The real question is, if someone else on this list continues fighting top competition (and beating them), and Fedor is stuck fighting 185 pounders or whoever his promoter can scrape up to fight him (Ricco Rodriguez, are you available?), how long can he continue to be the consensus #1 heavyweight in the world? No matter, hopefully he'll come to an agreement with Darth White and the dark side and fulfill the prophecy of the one heavyweight who would conquer them all. Ditto with Josh Barnett, who matches up well with Nogueira, but maybe not so much with Fedor and definitely not with Cro Cop. I'm not going to overreact regarding Cro Cop's admittedly devastating (and ironic) loss to Gabriel Gonzaga, but I do think that Gonzaga's excellent ground game and obviously improved standup warrants the spot I gave him. His being one slot above Randy Couture is not coincidence, I think he will beat Couture in their upcoming fight. Hey, Couture fans, relax: I think the biggest problem he presents is his size, as Couture originally dropped to light heavyweight because he couldn't deal with the larger heavyweights well...remember? We'll have to see if Andrei Arlovski can shake his recent gun-shy disposition in the cage; he's so well-rounded and explosive that I have a hard time dropping him any lower than I have. Meanwhile, it would appear that Brandon Vera may stick around after all in the UFC, which means we will all finally get to see exactly how much he does have to offer. I think he's already a solid top ten choice, recent inactivity be damned.
Notes: Yes, many have had Shogun Rua in that spot for some time, I am not one of them. What can I do? It appears as if no one else wants the top spot. Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva are both coming off devastating, sudden knockouts, and Rampage Jackson simply has not done enough in the last couple of years to warrant him getting the #1 spot yet. Don't blame me, I love the guy; but catching Liddell with a counter to an ill-advised lead body shot just doesn't erase the sometimes lethargic performances we've seen from Rampage since his dual Silva losses. Many will call for my head for "overlooking" Dan Henderson, but I think he fits nicely at #4. Hey, he's had one recent fight in the weight class, and he was swinging just as wildly as Wanderlei in their fight--I don't care what anyone says, it could have just as easily been him taking a long nap from a wild counter hook. He does have a great overall skill set, I just wonder if 205 is the best weight for him. Rameau Theirry Sokoudjou is a great story, even if he doesn't maintain his amazingly high level of performance in the future. He's a feel-good choice at the 6 slot, I'll admit. However, considering he's not necessarily even using his greatest strength in defeating top ten fighters, you have to be impressed with him. The Team Quest pedigree doesn't hurt, either. I have Tito Ortiz at number 9, but I could conceive a day when he's not represented here at all. Others have caught up to his wrestling acumen, and his standup is sometimes crisp and fundamentally not bad at all, but he lacks power in his punches and his opponents will willingly eat them to get a shot at his chin. At this point in his career, he's a jack of all trades, but a master of none. His ground and pound is devastating at times, but against a Rashad Evans, Ricardo Arona, Dan Henderson or, as we've seen twice, Chuck Liddell, will he even be able to use it? Evans, by the way, has been impressive, although his old problem of not finishing fights when he seems to have the opportunity to do so reared its ugly head again against Tito, and he suffered for it.
Middleweight (171-185 lbs)
1. Matt Lindland
2. Dan Henderson
3. Anderson Silva
4. Paulo Filho
5. Rich Franklin
6. Denis Kang
7. Jeremy Horn
8. Nathan Marquardt
9. Robbie Lawler
10. Kazuo Misaki
Notes: Lindland joins Shogun as my second number one-ranked fighter not currently sporting a UFC or Pride championship belt. It's a shame that this guy is not fighting the likes of Anderson Silva and his other top ten cohorts. You could easily rank Dan Henderson at number one in Lindland's stead, but Henderson's lethargic performance against Kazuo Misaki still holds me back. If Paulo Filho continues to finish opponents, like he did Joe Doerksen, he will continue to climb higher. It's hard for me to give up on Rich Franklin, and he will fare much better in his second bout with The Spider...will it be enough? That I'm not sure of. The fact that Franklin is basically forced to attempt a Hughes-esque ground and pound strategy if he wants to defeat Silva doesn't make me feel better, and it may just be a very poor matchup for Franklin, who's an otherwise great fighter. Laugh all you want at Jeremy Horn's inclusion here, the guy will be top ten in terms of skill as long as he fights, and he could beat any of the guys on this list on any given day. Robbie Lawler is sure to provoke a snicker or two as well, but his demolishing of Frank Trigg--who I was all set to give a top ten slot to--has earned him at least a temporary visit here. His explosiveness, aggressiveness and strength make him an extremely tough opponent.
Welterweight (156-170 lbs)
1. Georges St. Pierre
2. Matt Hughes
3. Josh Koscheck
4. Matt Serra
5. Diego Sanchez
6. Nick Diaz
7. Karo Parisyan
8. Jon Fitch
9. Jake Shields
10. Chris Lytle
Notes: Yes, Georges St. Pierre. I give his loss to Matt Serra a lot less credence than his domination of Matt Hughes, Frank Trigg and Sean Sherk, among others. The guy is still the future of the welterweight division, and will be regaining his title whether its Hughes or Serra holding it. I think Hughes is one of the greatest of all-time, but he doesn't match up well with St. Pierre and his technical expertise and experience is not enough to overcome the exposiveness and stand-up proficiency of GSP. Hughes-Josh Koscheck or Hughes-Diego Sanchez would be fascinating fights, even if they didn't turn out to be barn burners. Koscheck impressed me with his win over Sanchez, even if it was less than brilliantly exciting. I do think Sanchez would probably beat Matt Serra, but beating GSP has to be worth something, and Serra is a highly talented and ballsy fighter, even if he doesn't go on to justify his #4 ranking. The ruling of "no contest" in the Nick Diaz-Gomi fight may have been correct according to the rules, but there's no way that Diaz won simply because he had some wacky tobacky. It's easy to forget that fighters like Diaz are still very young, despite their experienced records. Meanwhile, Karo Parisyan and Jon Fitch continue to be muddled in a deep welterweight division, awaiting their title shots. Parisyan may get one soon, though the decision to wait until the end of the next "Ultimate Fighter" season to have Serra's long-awaited first title defense puts him (and everyone else) in position to have to wait a while. It will be at least two to three months after Hughes-Serra, which is still months away from now before Serra or Hughes will be ready to fight Parisyan or anyone else, for that matter. That means that even an impressive win over Sanchez won't net Fitch a title shot, either, unless the UFC is going to have him sit around for several months in the meantime. Finally, Chris Lytle is not an obvious choice to round out this list, but a credible one. The guy has been finished once--once--and it was due to a cut stoppage. He has a decent pro boxing pedigree and awesome submissions; all he has to do is put it all together, and if his aggressive style against Jason Gilliam at UFC 73 was any sign of a new approach, he may be one to watch out for.
Lightweight (155 lbs and under)
1. Takanori Gomi
2. Hayato "Mach" Sakurai
3. BJ Penn
4. Kid Yamamoto
5. Gilbert Melendez
6. Tatsuya Kawajiri
7. Shinya Aoki
8. Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro
9. Joachim Hansen
10. Sean Sherk
Notes: This is easily the hardest division to rank, and that will not change anytime soon. Many of the fighters listed are former Pride fighters who now are homeless or simply haven't fought since Pride's last days. Of this list, only Penn, Aoki, Ribeiro and Sherk have fought since February. Yamamoto, Melendez and Kawajiri haven't fought since December of last year! As I said before, I look at Takanori Gomi's loss to Diaz as legitimate, but it's hard not to rank him at the top, still. If anything, there are reasons not to rank any of the others #1 either, although at least half of them could be given the spot without much controversy. Unfortunately, even with "Mach" Sakurai coming to the UFC and BJ Penn supposedly sticking at 155 for awhile, many debates in this class will apparently not be settled soon. "Kid" Yamamoto is still focused on wrestling, and the UFC hasn't shown the immediate interest in signing/bringing in top lightweights as they have with their other weight classes. Even Sean Sherk could probably move higher with the right competition to test him, but now it may be a very long time before he gets to prove his talents further.
In the months to come, we're going to see more talent under one roof than ever before in this sport. The most positive thing to come out of it may be that UFC vs. Pride will finally become Fighter vs. Fighter, which is what MMA has always been all about. What will happen to fighters like Matt Lindland, or for the time being, Fedor Emelianenko, who may not have access to the highest level of competition? We may see more dream matches than in years past, but as long as legitimate #1 fighters in the world in their weight class aren't able to fight top contenders, the sport's still got a way to go. Cross promotion is very unlikely, especially involving the UFC, so rankings like these are still often going to remain theoretical. That being said, I look forward to some dissenting viewpoints, so send 'em along.
