The Savage Truth: Tainted Gloves

---

UFC 183 was supposed to be Anderson Silva’s return engagement, the fight that would erase the painful memories of the leg-shattering end to his last fight with Chris Weidman and the possible end to his amazing career.

Instead, nearly a decade’s worth of spectacular performances, amazing achievements and history will unfortunately be tainted by Silva’s positive test for the anabolic steroids drostanolone and androstane.

Widely viewed as the greatest fighter in MMA history, Silva has now been tagged with MMA’s own scarlet letters: PED. Should the findings of the Nevada Athletic Commission be verified, his entire fight ledger will be called into question. He will join a long list of athletes that have tarnished their names and reputations by testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.

This is a crucial time for the sport of mixed martial arts. After an extremely disappointing 2014, things seemed to be looking up as the calendar flipped to 2015. Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones had a dominant win over previously undefeated challenger Daniel Cormier and the pay-per-view forecast was through the roof. That was great news for the UFC, whose parent company, Zuffa LLC, had their corporate debt rating downgraded in November because of tumbling revenues. With so many injuries and late replacements, it had been hard for the company to build any momentum over the course of a very tough year, and the revenue drop was substantial.

Related » Nick Diaz Busted Again

But, with the success of UFC 182, things were looking up for the sport’s leading promoter. Well, at least until Jones’ positive test for cocaine metabolites surfaced a couple days after the fight.

Truthfully, you couldn’t pin that on the promoter. It wasn’t their fault that their young, rich, awkward champion chose to dabble in the white medicine a month before the biggest fight of his career. But make no mistake about it: the UFC are the ones who will pay the price for Jones and Silva’s indiscretions.

We’ll get back to that in a minute.

So, here we are, the fourth big UFC event of the year, and it was a rousing success for Silva personally and the company as a whole. Preliminary bouts generated solid ratings -- usually a harbinger of good pay-per-view buy rates -- and then wham, another kick to the gut. And this one looks like it is going to hurt for a while.

The UFC -- a company that recently canceled plans to randomly drug test all of its fighters, in and out of competition -- is now faced with another drug scandal. I get it, I really do, but relying on state commissions has done nothing to instill a sense of legitimacy to their fight to level the playing field inside the Octagon.

It is not the fighters like Jones or Silva that are going to pay the heftiest price. If they clean their acts up, do and say the right things, people will forgive them. What they won’t forgive or forget is a sport they don’t think is on the up and up.

MMA has an image problem. The prevailing opinion among most pundits is that it is as dirty a sport as you will find when it comes to PEDs. Public opinion seems to be moving in this direction as well, and that can’t be a good thing for a company that asks its fans to open their wallets and fork over some greenbacks at least once a month.

Throw in the shoddy judging epidemic that has been a growing concern for fans and media alike and you have the makings of a real sport killer. Forget Greg Jackson; if people don’t believe the sport is being played on a level playing field and that the outcomes are just, it is a recipe for disaster.

Oversaturation, a lack of big-time stars, a rampant injury problem, crummy officiating and two of the sport’s biggest stars testing positive is a lot to overcome. As someone who makes his living covering the sport, I hope this is just another bump in the road, but it seems like we’re just riding down a rocky path towards a cliff at this point.

It was encouraging to see the spike in ratings and the emergence of Conor McGregor continue, but it always seems to be something with MMA. With fans tuning out in droves, this was not what the sport needed just when it looked like the tide may have finally started to rise again.

Speaking of legitimacy, how about the good old Nevada Athletic Commission? The Keystone Cops of the regulation business strike again. Silva’s pre-fight test -- the one that came back positive -- was administered Jan. 9. The results conveniently came back right after the fight that brought quite a bit of coin into the state’s coffers.

But don’t worry, because NAC Executive Officer Bob Bennett is on the case. He says the commission is hoping to get the time of their lab reporting down to a week. I don’t know about you, but that seems like something you may have wanted to look at when you implemented a pre-fight testing regimen.

Why the hell is the commission testing fighters if there is zero intention to get results back in a timely manner? How does that protect a potential opponent from a fighter -- you know, the person whose stated goal is to inflict bodily harm on him -- who is hopped up on PEDs?

This brings us back to the biggest issue at hand: The UFC has everything to lose if this thing continues to spiral out of control.

I know they have a lot to lose if fights are canceled because of positive drug tests, but that would only be a costly inconvenience. A loss of faith from their loyal customers who decided to cast a vote of no confidence with their wallets could eventually prove fatal.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: from the Department of Redundancy Department, Nick Diaz tested positive for the hippie lettuce. Water is also wet and the sun is due to rise in the east. I’m sure he’ll soon be dodging the giant book the NAC is sure to throw his way. Too bad he doesn’t like coke instead of Mary Jane.

Greg Savage is the Executive Editor of Sherdog.com and can be reached via email or on Twitter @TheSavageTruth.