My rant of the day.
The UFC started getting serious about PED use a couple of years ago and signed a contract with USADA to implement strict drug testing including out of competition.
Since then it's fair to say the sport has almost been transformed.
Not only has there been a stack of positives (the most recent being Jon Jones, who it was argued was the greatest fighter in history), but the performances of a number of fighters has plummeted to almost comical levels, while others are suddenly champions.
For example, the British fighter Michael Bisping was an honest journeyman fighter for over a decade before suddenly beating fighters like Anderson Silva and Luke Rockhold to win the UFC Middleweight title. Anderson Silva was ranked alongside Jon Jones and George St Pierre as the greatest ever P4P, yet Bisping - notorious for being pillow fisted - actually knocked him down twice. Silva had earlier been one of the first to test positive under the new stricter USADA regime.
Bisping has always been vocal about PED use. I know that this is often actually a sign of cheating rather than honesty, but nobody ever suspected Bisping of being a PED user, and most fans would agree he's always been clean and this is a big factor in his recent success. He's competing on a level playing field now.
Then there's a number of fighters like Johnny Hendricks who have gone from being champions to near can level fighters almost overnight (GSP accused Hendricks of using PEDs before and after their controversial fight a few years ago which GSP won by a split decision).
Until the new testing came in, MMA/UFC was in the position that cycling was in a few years ago. So many were using PEDs that it wasn't even considered cheating by most of the athletes and most of the fans. Yet even then, there were evidently quite a number of athletes who were fighting clean because they felt it was cheating. Bisping evidently was one of them. Since becoming champion, his profile has rocketed and he is about to face off with GSP on his long awaited comeback fight for mega dollars. One of the biggest fights in MMA history. Perhaps he could have done this 10 years ago if he had taken PEDs with almost zero chance of getting caught. But he didn't.
So when certain slimeballs assume that EVERY top sportsman is taking PEDs, you are clearly wrong. Even when the UFC had little or no testing, there were quite a few fighters who fought clean, even though in a brutal combat sport like that, as GSP has said, fighting using PEDs could be considered as using biological weapons against your opponent. Jon Jones recently beat the amazing fighter Daniel Cormier by head kick and then brutal elbows and punches - before getting popped for steroids. Cormier probably has slight brain damage now and will likely never be quite the same fighter with the same legendary punch resistance as he had. Jones should not just be banned from the sport but charged with GBH or even attempted murder. That was the second time Jones had popped, btw, and most suspected him of long term PED usage, so if a guy like Cormier can get in a cage and risk his life with a steroid user and yet not take the stuff himself, it's really so hard to believe that guys like John Walker and Steve Ovett wouldn't step on the track clean and race the likes of Aouita even knowing they were at a chemical disadvantage?