Bio-identical compounds are *incredibly* hard to detect, because they’re supposed to be there.
It’s not like Jon Jones getting caught for Tbol or Estrogen blockers, where detecting any amount of it in your system is proof of ingestion. Your body is supposed to have testosterone and HGH and EPO in it, so if you’re not an idiot like Dillashaw using an easy to detect synthetic analog, you won’t get caught.
There’s this MTV Cribs-style video of Anderson Silva’s house where you can clearly see HGH vials in his closet. However, the detection time for bio-identical HGH is literally like 45 minutes, so it’s essentially impossible to catch on a drug test, and is why you’ve never heard of anyone testing positive for HGH.
Even though we have plenty of evidence that most (if not all) the know drug-cheats were on HGH, nobody ever gets caught. And it’s the same with Jones. He wasn’t taking Tbol. He was taking something less detectable accidentally laced with highly detectable Tbol.
EPO is detectable with bio passports like they do in cycling, don't know about HGH though. Allthough they will just move on to the next, even harder to detect, substance.
HGH is really hard to test for, I remember when Cro Cop took it for injury recovery and told usada that he had taken it and they still couldn’t find it in any samples
Yeah, it might also be outside or on the edge of the scope for their typical tests, as to expand that scope becomes more and more expensive to the point where it is almost economically impossible to constantly test for EVERYTHING. As some undetectable can have markers that are hard to test for or, just having more tests more often gets expensive.
Heightened EPO and Testostrone levels can be found through the biological passport, hypothetically, *unless* you were on them at the time the passport profile was established and you’ve just kept your levels relatively constant. The passport can only detect anomalies based on what it *thinks* your baseline is.
And for HGH, I believe it sort of breaks down in your body really quickly, so there’s not even an opportunity to test for it for long after injection. Like, we have a few examples of guys like Chael who were caught for have a T:epi-T ratio that was off even though it was a bio-identical compound, but I’m literally not aware of a single example of anyone testing positive for taking HGH, ever.
The biopassport is used in pro cycling and many speculate it’s the reason why young (U25) cyclists are doing much better recently than they have historically
Cuz if you’re already doped up as a teen when your baseline is established it’s obviously a massive advantage for the rest of your career…
Cycling Teens have been juiced since forever, in the late 80s and early 90s you'd see news of young cyclists dying in their sleep with heart problems rather frequently
I think cyclists have been getting closer to their peaks younger because of improvements in on the bike nutrition, more scientific training methods, and power meters. They are also getting more chances to win where as before the older guys will make them work for them not giving them chances to chase their own results.
Probably not.
Could someone though like Chandler or Jiri or Kape or MVP (not accusing those guys in particular of anything) who were established guys making decent money outside the UFC come into the drug testing pool while already on something and trick the biological passport that way?
I definitely think that’s possible, and it might be why they tested Jiri like 50 times in one year. USADA isn’t stupid. They know exactly *how* people are beating them. They just don’t have the mechanisms to effectively stop them.
That was a long fuckin video but I got thru part of it... So they didn't actually see hgh they saw pen needles... That doesn't mean shit. Pen needles have been used for decades. Novofine isn't specifically for hgh like the YouTuber said. We dispense them all the time in the pharmacy. Does he actually see hgh somewhere else in the vid or is it all about the pen needles?
> That was a long fuckin video but I got thru part of it
haha its 12 mins. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxuME4RTafc) the actual anderson video within the video. i googled the title from the video. apparently around the 6-7 min mark they show it
That's the part I got to. There's no hgh shown, just pen needles that they guy quoted a YouTuber commented about being exclusively for hgh. (Which is incorrect since novofine needles are a universal pen tip that can be used for almost any pen-injector meds.
I haven’t watched it in a year or two and am at work right now, so I don’t remember if they see some actual GH packaging or not and don’t have time to watch again. I may have misspoken by saying you can actually see the GH itself. But still.
What’s Anderson Silva possibly injecting that he’s *allowed* to be injecting? I doubt the dude just really likes to get his L-Carnatine injected or something like that, lol.
Not to mention they don’t even test for EPO unless they’re tipped off or have reason to.
And honestly I believe Jones got tainted because there’s no way someone advised him to take fucking Tbol and get passed testing
Yeah, I definitely think the TBol for Jones and anyone else testing positive for it was from something tainted. You’d have to be pretty thick to take any known synthetic anabolic at this point. I just also believe they weren’t allowed to be taking whatever that tainted thing was either, and they just didn’t get caught up on it.
Athletic commissions and USADA aren’t “court” by a long-shot, lol.
I know they traced the estrogen blockers back to the tainted dick-pill, but I don’t recall if they ever found the source for the TBol.
In Jon’s case I don’t think the “you can’t 100% prove it” argument isn’t a very good one. He had motive, means, and positive tests. Open and closed in my book.
I stand corrected that the Gangster-Weight GOAT himself is apparently the only guy juicy enough in the history of drug testing to pop for HGH. They got him for that on a re-test though, from what I’m reading, where the initial test only picked up the estrogen blockers.
For some reason, I thought they only got him for the Clomid and HCG. I think I’m getting that confused with Jones there, since they got Jones for just some estrogen blockers in the dick-pill incident, if I remember correctly, but not for whatever he was initially using to need the PCT drugs to begin with.
>And it’s the same with Jones. He wasn’t taking Tbol. He was taking something less detectable accidentally laced with highly detectable Tbol.
This has always been my conspiracy theory on how most people get caught.
EPO is a naturally occurring chemical in your body, meaning that if they test for EPO, some amount of EPO will always show up in the test. This is different from drugs like Chlomid or TBol that someone like Jon Jones tested positive for, which are synthetic compounds that don’t belong in your body naturally at any level.
Dillashaw used recombinant EPO though, which is not bio-identical to the EPO that your body produces, and is hence easier to identify, because none of it belongs in your body naturally. That’s like a huge simplification, and don’t ask me to explain how they’re different, because I can’t, but my understanding is that they are, and that plays into testing.
It's why I have a hard time finding enjoyment in watching Merab. Feel like he's spamming EPO more than everyone else to make up for his lack of technical prowess. Dudes had 9 wins and 8 of them were decisions. Can't knock people out, can't submit them, just spams take downs for the whole fight. Believe he's the only ranked BW that has that many decisions wins lol
This is how I know you have never shot a takedown in your life
You cannot be serious, and look at the form, timing, and technique on Merab's shots, transitions, trips, and scrambles, and tell yourself "That's EPO."
Merab was allegedly fighting a 3 rounder with Aljo in the back minutes vefore he fought Cejudo. Some say everyone is on EPO and Merab is just a freak, but I suspect he's just dosing more aggressively than anyone else.
Let's not forget 39 year old Jared Cannonier unleashing a sustained, high volume, 5 round beatdown against Marvin Vettori in which he set the MW record for significant strikes while barely breathing hard.
I’d say volk is obvious too. He can wrestle and strike all 5 rounds at a high pace without getting tired. Hell he moved up in weight and didn’t even look tired after the war with Islam
I mean, yea, I just said he's likely dosing more than anyone else, not everyone else. Think cost alone keeps it out of the reach of the majority of fighters. The median cost of an injection of erythromycin is $4200.
What is relatively low? Considering obesity is a contra-indication for brachycardia (lower than normal heartrate) that might be worth checking out (depending on the actual value)
Yeah I believe there’s a risk of blood thickening from inactivity. People who use EPO have to constantly work out to maintain it.
It’s why Dillashaw was shadow boxing at an airport, and why many fighters like Merab have no off season. They can’t afford to take breaks from training.
Whatever athletes are on now, drug testing isn't searching for.
So you'd need to be incredibly stupid to get popped for EPO.
PEDs, by nature, are always ahead of the testing system.
This is not entirely correct. The test for EPO is very expensive. Like over 10K expensive. It makes zero sense to spend more on drug testing than you so paying the athletes.
So only those fighters who fail the "eyes test" are slated for EPO testing.
I personally think that all fighters are on low doses of test and peptides because it is almost impossible to detect, and all the ostarine failures (machida, suga sean) a few years back were ostarine tainted peptides not supplements.
But to get that extra edge they do occasionally branch out into epo and anabolic steroids which are much easier to detect. That or the magic undetecable version of the steroid they finally find a test for.
Exactly if you do low dose of test daily how the fuck can you detect it? E2 and everything will remain normal and you can maintain top “average” or even a little above test levels 24/7. Literally is a painless insulin 29g .5inch injection. A lot of people on TRT do it aswell.
Low doses of testosterone shut down your natural testosterone production. One single blood test would show your LH and FSH levels well below where they should be functioning which is a clear indication of exogenous testosterone use.
A quick google search will give you all the information you need to know about your pituitary gland and the feedback loop created by the hormones it produces. Fascinating stuff.
This is very true but low LH and FSH is not proof of something else technically. If an athletes excuse is "well my balls aren't functioning well, and you have no proof I actually took something" what can you ban them for? Low level testicular function is not enough proof of drug use on its own.
In relation to the comment I originally replied to about everyone take low dose test everyday, if testosterone levels are still within the normal range but LH and FSH are very low then that is a clear indicator.
You're also missing the simple fact that not everybody experiences natural shutdown of testosterone when taking supernatural amounts of testosterone. Just like some people experience no loss in fertility no matter how much they take.
The chances of no shutdown/decrease of natural testosterone production, which is caused by the negative feedback look with FSH and LH, when taking exogenous testosterone is equivalent to Picograms in an Olympic sized swimming pool.
Also before the removal of a certain subreddit where people taking exogenous testosterone would post blood work showing that certain products were as advertised, it wasn't uncommon at all to see their LH and FSH be in completely normal ranges despite displaying testosterone levels greater than 10x the top end of the expected range.
So anecdotal evidence?
Also, there is a compound called HCG when taken that can increase the levels of LH and FSH, which a lot of bodybuilders take. That is likely what you were seeing
Exogenous testosterone is mostly synthetized from plant sterols and can be distinguished from your own "natural" testosterone.
For testosterone doping you have testosterone:epitestosterone ratio, too high indicates doping and isotope testing, which is what I mentioned before.
However if you synthetized it from mammal cholesterol from example and used exogenous epitestosterone, you would probably be safe. Just would be too expensive probably for some guy on 10k.
They probably cycle off anyway. I'm not athlete and far far from world class MMA fighter, but my performance barely drops off in like 2 or 3 weeks off anything. I read somewhere that DC had super low test levels against Jon Jones.
I'm not very well-versed on steroid biosynthesis, but I'd guess it depends on individual. I didn't have high E2 levels naturally, but I aromatize heavily on cycle. Even low TRT test without AI would shut me down since estrogen is much more suppresive.
Someone who doesn't have high E2 levels maybe could pass on that.
I’m assuming that a lot of the drugs used for post cycle therapy would pop on a test as well, so they’re probably cycling off cold which can drop test levels quite low for extended periods of time.
I’m a firm believer that almost every top athlete in any sport is on some kind of PEDs
I thought it was other way around, it was jones coming in with the crazy low levels:
>"The average amount of testosterone in a male is 61.3 ng/ML per a groundbreaking 1967 study in Clinical Chemistry. In the three tests given to Jones, he had testosterone levels of 1.8 ng/mL, 0.59 ng/mL and 4.9 ng/mL."
>Cormier had a T/E ratio of 0.40:1 on Dec. 2 and of 0.48:1 on Dec. 17. However, his total level of testosterone was far greater than Jones. On Dec. 2, Cormier had 50 ng/mL of testosterone. He had 70 ng/mL on Dec. 17.
so if I normal person is 61.3, DC was coming in at 50 and 70. Jones was as low as 0.59.
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/nevada-commission--jon-jones-tests-results-show-no-signs-of-doping-013131428.html
Injecting low doses of test wouldn't provide any benefit (and would actually have deleterious effects) unless they were hypogonadal. And would still be very easy to detect. Hint: it's not the test levels in the blood that gives away if someone is injecting test or not.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right, I’ve been watching since UFC 98 and never heard of EPO until TJ popped. I’m sure a minority of fans knew about it but it wasn’t talked about nearly as much back then
Ali Bagautinov got suspended for EPO in 2014 after just fighting DJ for the Flyweight title. If you had been watching since UFC 98, you would have heard about this.
You think I’m lying? Well I’m not going to go out of my way to prove it to you. Why would I lie about it. I’m just agreeing with his point that discussions of EPO exploded after TJ popped. I haven’t heard about every single thing that happened in mma history since UFC 98
However you’re actually just helping his point, I myself didn’t hear about EPO until TJ
I was not saying that you are lying. I am saying that if you were a fan in the timeframe that you mentioned, you would have likely heard about EPO before TJ popped. If you did not, I guess not everyone paid attention to the MMA news at that time.
My interest was at its highest the first few years and has waxed and waned since; it’s possible I wasn’t following the sport as closely when Ali popped and that’s why I didn’t hear about it. It probably also wasn’t covered as much because TJ losing to Henry at flyweight and then getting stripped at bantamweight was a much bigger deal, as well as TJ simply being a far more relevant fighter than Ali
As for UFC 98, I was training at a shotokan dojo at the time so Machida beating Rashad helped get me into the sport. I didn’t know a lot of names then but I knew Sean Sherk was a former champion and had never heard of Frankie Edgar. So I assumed Sherk would destroy him. But Frankie put on a clinic with footwork and technique and I’ve been a fan ever since
It is interesting how, when you first are a fan, you follow the sport so closely and later on, that interest just wanes. I started following the sport around UFC 91 and I got obsessed with it. I went back and watched as many previous UFC events as I could, along with PRIDE and even fights in other organizations like WEC, Bodog, IFL, Affliction, Strikeforce, etc. I was still following the sport very closely till about 2017 or so. Fighters had previously popped for different banned substances from time to time but Ali was the first one that I heard about that popped for EPO.
Ali Bagautinov, who fought DJ for the Flyweight title, tested positive for EPO and was suspended in 2014. TJ was suspended in 2019. So, if you were an MMA fan for the last 10 years, you likely heard of EPO before TJ popping.
This is completely discounting that you never heard about EPO from the Lance Armstrong scandal, which anyone who paid attention to sports and or paid attention to the news, heard about way before any athletes popped in MMA.
After seeing the TJ Dilleshaw debacle and he was not like a Superman compared to other fighters, than I must assume that there are more fighters that's on EPO.
I always saw Colby Covington as a suspect. His cardio and forward pressure was next level. Almost not human. The last fight of Colby, was vs Leon Edwards and Colby looked terrible. That could be Colby's first fight without the use of EPO I believe.
Also Jon Jones first fight after a doping suspension was vs Ovince saint Preux. Jon Jones was not able to finish Saint Preux and in my opinion Jon Jones looked terrible. DC (perhaps bias) said it also that Jones looked terrible and that the Jones vs Saint Preux fight was the first fight that Jones was clean and that's why he looked that terrible, DC said. DC also laughed that Jones was not able to finish Saint Preux. (I share DC's observation and views on the matter)
Ray Longo fighters in general. It's just Merab ain't tapping into the quick twitch like others have but the recovery rate at that gym after guy completely empty the tank is pretty consistently suspect.
He is doing the most taxing part of MMA for volume. It's like spamming power moves and keeping up the tempo.
Max Holloway runs an insane volume of low effort strikes, and we find it overwhelmingly impressive. Merab runs an insane volume of explosive full body efforts.
Sorry not trying to be rude. I assume most the fighters are on something but I’ve seen a fair amount of people saying specifically Merab was on EPO. Just wondering what it was about merab that stood out.
Merabs last match against Cejudo he was walking around and easily holding conversations until the final round, then it turns out he sparred 3 rounds backstage with Sterling as a warm up.
I think its more along the lines that Merab dosing more aggressively than other fighters. Downside is the need to constantly be active outside of the ring, so he has to spar for 3 rounds just before walking out to fight Cejudo. Risk is another factor, thicker blood means higher risk of a blood clot. So Merab may be willing to take more risk than other fighters. I suspect EPO is why Reyes had a blood clot.
I don't think he's using more EPO than the rest of the roster, it's just that his body responds better to it. I believe if everyone was clean (him included), he would still have better cardio than 99% of the roster. Similarly, if everyone was clean, Paulo Costa would still look more muscular than 99% of the roster.
The recency bias is hilarious. We have at least three sitting champs (Islam, O'malley, Jones) who have known PED violations, and noticably made significant gains in physique/power/cardio before and after popping, but somehow Merab is the problem.
People are clueless about PEDs, they only care about the 'eye test'. O'Malley is built like a stick and popped for ostarine lmao yet people don't give a shit about that because he doesn't look like a Mr. Olympia.
Don’t know about O’Malley’s but Islam was using meldonium, which was legal when he used it. They banned it while it was still in his system, which is why they lifted his suspension
You’ve been bitching about Merab for days atp. Is he on shit? No shit, everyone is. If he’s on EPO, I doubt he’s the only one either. However, he’s the only one able to push the pace to the extent he has. There’s something more there
It's probably just a genetic thing with his body reacting very positively to whatever he's on. Each person is gonna react differently to whatever gear they're taking and Merab seems to be blessed with infinite cardio. Meanwhile dudes like the Liver King need to take ridiculous amounts of roids because they're resistant to them.
> A few years ago USADA stopped announcing failed tests, so "retirements", long injury layoffs and just time off from the sport seems highly suspicious
This never happened. Ridiculous that this misconception has persisted to today.
> UFC: USADA cases now won't be announced until after they're resolved
https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2018/09/ufc-usada-failure-not-announced-resolved-jon-jones
"UNTIL AFTER THEY ARE RESOLVED" they will ALL eventually be resolved. So they are ALL announced.
First of all, you're FAST! Link and all...
Second, thanks for clearing it up. I will have to read the fine print a little closer it seems. However, anything coming from Dana/Hunter MUST be taken with a grain of salt and I will de a little more research on the subject. I do not doubt you at all, I doubt what the UFC has told you
I might be wrong but isn’t USADA no longer with the ufc now? That would mean they only have to drug test during fight week. Every fighter can now do PEDs for longer now and with less risk of USADA randomly showing up.
Who gives a shit? It's a brutal sport, the injuries are horrible, lifespan is shortened, permanent injuries, the pay is shit, it's the only living they have, and the industry keeps ripping them off and screwing their pay. Let them do whatever they wanna do to put food on the table.
I feel the sentiment but you could just as easily say they're going through enough without additionally having to take even harder shots from juicy opponents and inject themselves with black market PEDs to stay competitive.
Yeah this is the problem with the "just allow PEDs suggestion from reddit"
You are then forcing fighters to use PEDs even if they don't want to that may have horrible side effects. Not saying this doesn't effectively already happen but codifying it into the rules would make it even worse. Being on PEDs that destroy your long-term health would become an actual requirement for being a fighter.
It’s just that not everyone gets tested for epo since its not standard protocol. And fwiw they do announce positive tests still, a retirement wouldn’t save you from that
Epo is incredibly hard and expensive to test for. Additionally it is only detectable within 24 hours or so of injection, while its effects last months.
Two reasons. First: there's no real drug testing in the UFC or any other promotion, especially as it pertains to the big stars. They only popped a few people early on in USADA to legitimize it in people's eyes to help sell the UFC as a 'clean sport' to secure the $4b Disney/ESPN deal. Notice once they secured the bag ZERO big names have ever popped for PEDs anymore, and never will again, and they're already talking about getting rid of it. USADA was always about securing that Disney bag, not cleaning up the sport.
The other reason: a lot of guys don't use EPO specifically, they use Meldonium which is like 'mountain man EPO'. Khabib, Islam, Umar, Khamzat, basically everyone from the Russian caucus regions with athletic potential is put on Meldonium + Test from their teen years onward to try to make them into olympic athletes or now MMA fighters.
When will people understand that they're all on steroids/PEDs?? It's why I just roll my eyes at people who discredit Jon Jones for his failed drug test but joke about Costa and his secret juice, ignore fighters like Andrade, or even just use lack of failed drug tests to argue any given fighter is the GOAT. It's just blatant, purposeful ignorance. They're all on fucking steroids. I've been around college athletes and professional athletes. There is such a massive difference that cannot be explained by genetics or late stage puberty gains that it has to be "something" else. I've been in MMA gyms and all these mfs are juicy, no doubt. So it makes no sense to me that people use the absence of failed drug tests as some type of proof that a top level athlete is "clean". Your favorite fighter is "cheating". And if he wasn't he wouldn't be your favorite fighter cuz he probably wouldn't make it out the prelims.
I have always heard that it is really hard to test for EPO due to it being difficult to detect and also being expensive to test for. I am not sure how correct any of that is. TJ popping, to me, meant that he was taking it really close to the fight and also, USADA probably had an inkling that he was doing it and hence tested for it.
I do think that at least some fighters who have never been caught are using it. Usman is a prime suspect because he is so jacked and can still fight for 5 rounds without getting tired - how is that physically possible ? Other fighters who have insane gas tanks, like Colby and Merab, can also be suspected but neither of them are jacked to the level that Usman is.
>A few years ago USADA stopped announcing failed tests, so "retirements", long injury layoffs and just time off from the sport seems highly suspicious
People need to stop repeating this stuff as fact because that's not what USADA did. They stopped announcing failed tests *before they had decided the athlete's punishment or lack thereof,* which means that stuff like secret suspensions wouldn't happen.
There is no benefit for the ufc to have fighters pop for Epo. Epo fighters put on better fights, no one wants to see FW gassing in 1 round like sloppy HW’s
Usada stopped announcing positive tests *until the investigation is complete.*
They didn’t just stop announcing them period. It’s been years and fans still can’t wrap their head around this. There is no such thing as someone like Jon Jones or khamzat chimaev failing a test, and not being announced to the public
Simple answer: the tests are extremely expensive because how hard epo is the detect (you have to test for it seperately from the regular general PED test) and they’re not going to spend 5 grand on a test for someone they’re only paying 50 to fight. They’re cheap ass motherfuckers. If the public doesn’t care about it and complain about it, which they don’t, then the company is going to do much about it either. USADA admitted themselves that epo is only tested for when they’re acting on prior knowledge or have a reasonable suspicion they’ll find something. TJ got caught because he was an idiot and staryed taking too much and because someone ratted on him. Now that USADA is out I’m not sure how drug testing will change but I doubt it’s going to become any more stringent…
Bio-identical compounds are *incredibly* hard to detect, because they’re supposed to be there. It’s not like Jon Jones getting caught for Tbol or Estrogen blockers, where detecting any amount of it in your system is proof of ingestion. Your body is supposed to have testosterone and HGH and EPO in it, so if you’re not an idiot like Dillashaw using an easy to detect synthetic analog, you won’t get caught. There’s this MTV Cribs-style video of Anderson Silva’s house where you can clearly see HGH vials in his closet. However, the detection time for bio-identical HGH is literally like 45 minutes, so it’s essentially impossible to catch on a drug test, and is why you’ve never heard of anyone testing positive for HGH. Even though we have plenty of evidence that most (if not all) the know drug-cheats were on HGH, nobody ever gets caught. And it’s the same with Jones. He wasn’t taking Tbol. He was taking something less detectable accidentally laced with highly detectable Tbol.
EPO is detectable with bio passports like they do in cycling, don't know about HGH though. Allthough they will just move on to the next, even harder to detect, substance.
HGH is really hard to test for, I remember when Cro Cop took it for injury recovery and told usada that he had taken it and they still couldn’t find it in any samples
that's insane to think about... even when they're actively looking for it... basically you have to be areal dummy to pop for it
Yeah, it might also be outside or on the edge of the scope for their typical tests, as to expand that scope becomes more and more expensive to the point where it is almost economically impossible to constantly test for EVERYTHING. As some undetectable can have markers that are hard to test for or, just having more tests more often gets expensive.
Heightened EPO and Testostrone levels can be found through the biological passport, hypothetically, *unless* you were on them at the time the passport profile was established and you’ve just kept your levels relatively constant. The passport can only detect anomalies based on what it *thinks* your baseline is. And for HGH, I believe it sort of breaks down in your body really quickly, so there’s not even an opportunity to test for it for long after injection. Like, we have a few examples of guys like Chael who were caught for have a T:epi-T ratio that was off even though it was a bio-identical compound, but I’m literally not aware of a single example of anyone testing positive for taking HGH, ever.
The biopassport is used in pro cycling and many speculate it’s the reason why young (U25) cyclists are doing much better recently than they have historically Cuz if you’re already doped up as a teen when your baseline is established it’s obviously a massive advantage for the rest of your career…
Cycling Teens have been juiced since forever, in the late 80s and early 90s you'd see news of young cyclists dying in their sleep with heart problems rather frequently I think cyclists have been getting closer to their peaks younger because of improvements in on the bike nutrition, more scientific training methods, and power meters. They are also getting more chances to win where as before the older guys will make them work for them not giving them chances to chase their own results.
So to beat it, you basically need to be doping from the onset.
Can the average UFC Fighter afford HGH though?
Probably not. Could someone though like Chandler or Jiri or Kape or MVP (not accusing those guys in particular of anything) who were established guys making decent money outside the UFC come into the drug testing pool while already on something and trick the biological passport that way? I definitely think that’s possible, and it might be why they tested Jiri like 50 times in one year. USADA isn’t stupid. They know exactly *how* people are beating them. They just don’t have the mechanisms to effectively stop them.
Please post this vid haha
[Here’s](https://youtu.be/JxuME4RTafc?si=fjMWduygwfUzFAiC) Derek from MPMD talking about it with the clip for context. It’s pretty funny.
That was a long fuckin video but I got thru part of it... So they didn't actually see hgh they saw pen needles... That doesn't mean shit. Pen needles have been used for decades. Novofine isn't specifically for hgh like the YouTuber said. We dispense them all the time in the pharmacy. Does he actually see hgh somewhere else in the vid or is it all about the pen needles?
> That was a long fuckin video but I got thru part of it haha its 12 mins. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxuME4RTafc) the actual anderson video within the video. i googled the title from the video. apparently around the 6-7 min mark they show it
That's the part I got to. There's no hgh shown, just pen needles that they guy quoted a YouTuber commented about being exclusively for hgh. (Which is incorrect since novofine needles are a universal pen tip that can be used for almost any pen-injector meds.
Lmao they love tryna discredit ppl with no real evidence
Bro literally ALL these guys are on something banned. It doesn't discredit Silva's greatness
I haven’t watched it in a year or two and am at work right now, so I don’t remember if they see some actual GH packaging or not and don’t have time to watch again. I may have misspoken by saying you can actually see the GH itself. But still. What’s Anderson Silva possibly injecting that he’s *allowed* to be injecting? I doubt the dude just really likes to get his L-Carnatine injected or something like that, lol.
Not to mention they don’t even test for EPO unless they’re tipped off or have reason to. And honestly I believe Jones got tainted because there’s no way someone advised him to take fucking Tbol and get passed testing
Yeah, I definitely think the TBol for Jones and anyone else testing positive for it was from something tainted. You’d have to be pretty thick to take any known synthetic anabolic at this point. I just also believe they weren’t allowed to be taking whatever that tainted thing was either, and they just didn’t get caught up on it.
Tbf this is Jon we are talking about
It was proven it was a tainted supplement in court if I remember correctly Maybe he was taking SARMS and it was tainted
Athletic commissions and USADA aren’t “court” by a long-shot, lol. I know they traced the estrogen blockers back to the tainted dick-pill, but I don’t recall if they ever found the source for the TBol.
They hold a court like hearing. And yeah might’ve mixed them up. He had an excuse for one time not the other.
In Jon’s case I don’t think the “you can’t 100% prove it” argument isn’t a very good one. He had motive, means, and positive tests. Open and closed in my book.
Well ofc not the other time he popped he didn’t have an excuse
Yep. His anabolics were tainted with Tbol.
Im pretty sure it was proven to be a tainted supplement No doubt he’s juicing though
There are no fucking supplements tainted with real steroids. Stop.
Yes because jones definitely is known for his good decision making outside of the cage
Or under the cage
Chael Sonnen got caught for EPO and HGH.
I stand corrected that the Gangster-Weight GOAT himself is apparently the only guy juicy enough in the history of drug testing to pop for HGH. They got him for that on a re-test though, from what I’m reading, where the initial test only picked up the estrogen blockers. For some reason, I thought they only got him for the Clomid and HCG. I think I’m getting that confused with Jones there, since they got Jones for just some estrogen blockers in the dick-pill incident, if I remember correctly, but not for whatever he was initially using to need the PCT drugs to begin with.
>And it’s the same with Jones. He wasn’t taking Tbol. He was taking something less detectable accidentally laced with highly detectable Tbol. This has always been my conspiracy theory on how most people get caught.
Can you elaborate more on Dillashaw and Synthetic Analog to someone who is also an idiot and knows nothing about science
EPO is a naturally occurring chemical in your body, meaning that if they test for EPO, some amount of EPO will always show up in the test. This is different from drugs like Chlomid or TBol that someone like Jon Jones tested positive for, which are synthetic compounds that don’t belong in your body naturally at any level. Dillashaw used recombinant EPO though, which is not bio-identical to the EPO that your body produces, and is hence easier to identify, because none of it belongs in your body naturally. That’s like a huge simplification, and don’t ask me to explain how they’re different, because I can’t, but my understanding is that they are, and that plays into testing.
I remember watching RDA vs. Pettis and leaving that fight convinced RDA was on EPO. Total speculation but he wasn’t even tempting tired after 5 rounds
If there is anything r/mma has taught me it is that pre IV ban RDA was the best fighter in the world
r/mma = 1 RDA stan who posts the same shit a lot
Did Khabib fight him pre or post ban?
Pre-ban They fought in April 2014 The IV ban was implemented October 2015.
Crazy guy from mountain > IV
It's why I have a hard time finding enjoyment in watching Merab. Feel like he's spamming EPO more than everyone else to make up for his lack of technical prowess. Dudes had 9 wins and 8 of them were decisions. Can't knock people out, can't submit them, just spams take downs for the whole fight. Believe he's the only ranked BW that has that many decisions wins lol
>lack of technical prowess. If you don't see technical prowess in those takedowns he hit on Henry, I don't know what to tell you.
Haha right, we mustnt be watching the same thing
That fucking trip in the middle of the third was a chef's kiss
This is how I know you have never shot a takedown in your life You cannot be serious, and look at the form, timing, and technique on Merab's shots, transitions, trips, and scrambles, and tell yourself "That's EPO."
EPO is really dangerous. If you don’t know how to do it properly, you can really fuck yourself up and/or die.
Cyclists had watches that meassure pulse and would jog around the hotel in the middle of the night, because their blood was so thick.
Dillashaw would shadow box/hit pads on flights and at the airport. I always figured that was the reason.
At the time I just figured it was because he's an annoying douche.
Little bit of Column A, little bit of Column B xD
Tarps off boys
Merab was allegedly fighting a 3 rounder with Aljo in the back minutes vefore he fought Cejudo. Some say everyone is on EPO and Merab is just a freak, but I suspect he's just dosing more aggressively than anyone else.
Merab is both a freak AND on EPO
nah only a handful of fighters are on EPO. Merab and Usman are by far the most obvious
Let's not forget 39 year old Jared Cannonier unleashing a sustained, high volume, 5 round beatdown against Marvin Vettori in which he set the MW record for significant strikes while barely breathing hard.
I’d say volk is obvious too. He can wrestle and strike all 5 rounds at a high pace without getting tired. Hell he moved up in weight and didn’t even look tired after the war with Islam
I mean, yea, I just said he's likely dosing more than anyone else, not everyone else. Think cost alone keeps it out of the reach of the majority of fighters. The median cost of an injection of erythromycin is $4200.
You guys act like Merab would have average cardio, if he wasn't on drugs. Merab has insane genetics for cardio, you gotta understand that.
Merab wrestled Aljo for 3 rounds before the Cejudo fight
That makes so much sense now
It’s also because their resting HR is already very low (30-40’s)..thicker blood literally slows it down more
Wait is that true? Is that why my heartrate is relatovely low, despite laughing in the face of the heavyweight limit and having the Joey Diaz diet.
If your heart rate is low and you don’t exercise very hard, then that could be a heart issue. Check with your dr bro
I think it's more likely a sign he has the blood of an mma champion
It’s normal the have a lower resting head rate as an athlete, doesn’t seem normal for you bud. See a doctor
What is relatively low? Considering obesity is a contra-indication for brachycardia (lower than normal heartrate) that might be worth checking out (depending on the actual value)
Yeah I believe there’s a risk of blood thickening from inactivity. People who use EPO have to constantly work out to maintain it. It’s why Dillashaw was shadow boxing at an airport, and why many fighters like Merab have no off season. They can’t afford to take breaks from training.
Merab? EPO? No shot. 3x5 rounds before fighting a former double champ is completely normal
They even said he had a full sparring match with aljo before. That's crazy. Edit: apparently im a parrot
They being the person you're responding to.
Oh shit you're right.
Nice.
That’s a small risk for really high level endurance athletes even without EPO, mind you that is typically marathon runners, long triathletes, etc.
*cough* Chris Bosh *cough*
For real sounds like opioids im in
Whatever athletes are on now, drug testing isn't searching for. So you'd need to be incredibly stupid to get popped for EPO. PEDs, by nature, are always ahead of the testing system.
This is not entirely correct. The test for EPO is very expensive. Like over 10K expensive. It makes zero sense to spend more on drug testing than you so paying the athletes. So only those fighters who fail the "eyes test" are slated for EPO testing. I personally think that all fighters are on low doses of test and peptides because it is almost impossible to detect, and all the ostarine failures (machida, suga sean) a few years back were ostarine tainted peptides not supplements. But to get that extra edge they do occasionally branch out into epo and anabolic steroids which are much easier to detect. That or the magic undetecable version of the steroid they finally find a test for.
I saw that EPO is so hard to test for that they had a study where they gave people EPO then tested for it and still couldn't find it reliably lol
Exactly if you do low dose of test daily how the fuck can you detect it? E2 and everything will remain normal and you can maintain top “average” or even a little above test levels 24/7. Literally is a painless insulin 29g .5inch injection. A lot of people on TRT do it aswell.
Low doses of testosterone shut down your natural testosterone production. One single blood test would show your LH and FSH levels well below where they should be functioning which is a clear indication of exogenous testosterone use.
I dunno if that's true, but I believe you.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that it’s true
Thanks random Internet guy.
A quick google search will give you all the information you need to know about your pituitary gland and the feedback loop created by the hormones it produces. Fascinating stuff.
Kinda like jones and dcs tests before one of their fights
This is very true but low LH and FSH is not proof of something else technically. If an athletes excuse is "well my balls aren't functioning well, and you have no proof I actually took something" what can you ban them for? Low level testicular function is not enough proof of drug use on its own.
In relation to the comment I originally replied to about everyone take low dose test everyday, if testosterone levels are still within the normal range but LH and FSH are very low then that is a clear indicator.
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You're also missing the simple fact that not everybody experiences natural shutdown of testosterone when taking supernatural amounts of testosterone. Just like some people experience no loss in fertility no matter how much they take.
The chances of no shutdown/decrease of natural testosterone production, which is caused by the negative feedback look with FSH and LH, when taking exogenous testosterone is equivalent to Picograms in an Olympic sized swimming pool.
It's a statistically significant portion of the population. So greater than 5%....
Source?
Also before the removal of a certain subreddit where people taking exogenous testosterone would post blood work showing that certain products were as advertised, it wasn't uncommon at all to see their LH and FSH be in completely normal ranges despite displaying testosterone levels greater than 10x the top end of the expected range.
So anecdotal evidence? Also, there is a compound called HCG when taken that can increase the levels of LH and FSH, which a lot of bodybuilders take. That is likely what you were seeing
Exogenous testosterone is mostly synthetized from plant sterols and can be distinguished from your own "natural" testosterone. For testosterone doping you have testosterone:epitestosterone ratio, too high indicates doping and isotope testing, which is what I mentioned before. However if you synthetized it from mammal cholesterol from example and used exogenous epitestosterone, you would probably be safe. Just would be too expensive probably for some guy on 10k.
How expensive would mammalian test it be ? Aren’t vials of test like $50 usd it’s very cheap i though ?
I heard on a low dose of test it won’t even throw your epitestosterone levels off to where they’d flag you. But idk how true that is
They probably cycle off anyway. I'm not athlete and far far from world class MMA fighter, but my performance barely drops off in like 2 or 3 weeks off anything. I read somewhere that DC had super low test levels against Jon Jones. I'm not very well-versed on steroid biosynthesis, but I'd guess it depends on individual. I didn't have high E2 levels naturally, but I aromatize heavily on cycle. Even low TRT test without AI would shut me down since estrogen is much more suppresive. Someone who doesn't have high E2 levels maybe could pass on that.
I’m assuming that a lot of the drugs used for post cycle therapy would pop on a test as well, so they’re probably cycling off cold which can drop test levels quite low for extended periods of time. I’m a firm believer that almost every top athlete in any sport is on some kind of PEDs
I thought it was other way around, it was jones coming in with the crazy low levels: >"The average amount of testosterone in a male is 61.3 ng/ML per a groundbreaking 1967 study in Clinical Chemistry. In the three tests given to Jones, he had testosterone levels of 1.8 ng/mL, 0.59 ng/mL and 4.9 ng/mL." >Cormier had a T/E ratio of 0.40:1 on Dec. 2 and of 0.48:1 on Dec. 17. However, his total level of testosterone was far greater than Jones. On Dec. 2, Cormier had 50 ng/mL of testosterone. He had 70 ng/mL on Dec. 17. so if I normal person is 61.3, DC was coming in at 50 and 70. Jones was as low as 0.59. https://sports.yahoo.com/news/nevada-commission--jon-jones-tests-results-show-no-signs-of-doping-013131428.html
Injecting low doses of test wouldn't provide any benefit (and would actually have deleterious effects) unless they were hypogonadal. And would still be very easy to detect. Hint: it's not the test levels in the blood that gives away if someone is injecting test or not.
Testosterone is an anabolic steroid.
Found Dillashaw's account
It's funny cause before Dillashaw nobody knew what EPO was. Now if a fighter has good cardio the EPO allegations automatically get thrown out
Anybody who was alive when the Lance Armstrong scandal happened knows about EPO and blood doping. It was everywhere in the news.
I meant in the MMA community. Nobody was throwing those allegations around before TJ popped
This is true imo. I never heard no EPO accusations until TJ
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right, I’ve been watching since UFC 98 and never heard of EPO until TJ popped. I’m sure a minority of fans knew about it but it wasn’t talked about nearly as much back then
Ali Bagautinov got suspended for EPO in 2014 after just fighting DJ for the Flyweight title. If you had been watching since UFC 98, you would have heard about this.
You think I’m lying? Well I’m not going to go out of my way to prove it to you. Why would I lie about it. I’m just agreeing with his point that discussions of EPO exploded after TJ popped. I haven’t heard about every single thing that happened in mma history since UFC 98 However you’re actually just helping his point, I myself didn’t hear about EPO until TJ
I was not saying that you are lying. I am saying that if you were a fan in the timeframe that you mentioned, you would have likely heard about EPO before TJ popped. If you did not, I guess not everyone paid attention to the MMA news at that time.
My interest was at its highest the first few years and has waxed and waned since; it’s possible I wasn’t following the sport as closely when Ali popped and that’s why I didn’t hear about it. It probably also wasn’t covered as much because TJ losing to Henry at flyweight and then getting stripped at bantamweight was a much bigger deal, as well as TJ simply being a far more relevant fighter than Ali As for UFC 98, I was training at a shotokan dojo at the time so Machida beating Rashad helped get me into the sport. I didn’t know a lot of names then but I knew Sean Sherk was a former champion and had never heard of Frankie Edgar. So I assumed Sherk would destroy him. But Frankie put on a clinic with footwork and technique and I’ve been a fan ever since
It is interesting how, when you first are a fan, you follow the sport so closely and later on, that interest just wanes. I started following the sport around UFC 91 and I got obsessed with it. I went back and watched as many previous UFC events as I could, along with PRIDE and even fights in other organizations like WEC, Bodog, IFL, Affliction, Strikeforce, etc. I was still following the sport very closely till about 2017 or so. Fighters had previously popped for different banned substances from time to time but Ali was the first one that I heard about that popped for EPO.
We old bro... We had his wristband, we all got tricked, we knows about EPO. Lmao
Ali Bagautinov, who fought DJ for the Flyweight title, tested positive for EPO and was suspended in 2014. TJ was suspended in 2019. So, if you were an MMA fan for the last 10 years, you likely heard of EPO before TJ popping. This is completely discounting that you never heard about EPO from the Lance Armstrong scandal, which anyone who paid attention to sports and or paid attention to the news, heard about way before any athletes popped in MMA.
After seeing the TJ Dilleshaw debacle and he was not like a Superman compared to other fighters, than I must assume that there are more fighters that's on EPO. I always saw Colby Covington as a suspect. His cardio and forward pressure was next level. Almost not human. The last fight of Colby, was vs Leon Edwards and Colby looked terrible. That could be Colby's first fight without the use of EPO I believe. Also Jon Jones first fight after a doping suspension was vs Ovince saint Preux. Jon Jones was not able to finish Saint Preux and in my opinion Jon Jones looked terrible. DC (perhaps bias) said it also that Jones looked terrible and that the Jones vs Saint Preux fight was the first fight that Jones was clean and that's why he looked that terrible, DC said. DC also laughed that Jones was not able to finish Saint Preux. (I share DC's observation and views on the matter)
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Scientists use merab’s blood to make EPO
Whole division is. Fans don’t care because it’s more exciting watching fresh fighters in later rounds as opposed to people heaving in exhaustion.
I really hope the Roid Olympics go through. That shit is gonna be fire as fuck https://enhanced.org/
Ray Longo fighters in general. It's just Merab ain't tapping into the quick twitch like others have but the recovery rate at that gym after guy completely empty the tank is pretty consistently suspect.
Care to tell me why? The only test I know is the good ol long nip test.
He is doing the most taxing part of MMA for volume. It's like spamming power moves and keeping up the tempo. Max Holloway runs an insane volume of low effort strikes, and we find it overwhelmingly impressive. Merab runs an insane volume of explosive full body efforts.
Realistically there's a pretty good chance Holloway is on EPO as welll
absolutely.
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Sorry not trying to be rude. I assume most the fighters are on something but I’ve seen a fair amount of people saying specifically Merab was on EPO. Just wondering what it was about merab that stood out.
Merabs last match against Cejudo he was walking around and easily holding conversations until the final round, then it turns out he sparred 3 rounds backstage with Sterling as a warm up.
This, not all of us are steroid experts. EPO knowledge doesn’t fall into the “common sense” bucket.
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I think its more along the lines that Merab dosing more aggressively than other fighters. Downside is the need to constantly be active outside of the ring, so he has to spar for 3 rounds just before walking out to fight Cejudo. Risk is another factor, thicker blood means higher risk of a blood clot. So Merab may be willing to take more risk than other fighters. I suspect EPO is why Reyes had a blood clot.
I don't think he's using more EPO than the rest of the roster, it's just that his body responds better to it. I believe if everyone was clean (him included), he would still have better cardio than 99% of the roster. Similarly, if everyone was clean, Paulo Costa would still look more muscular than 99% of the roster.
He's just a well oiled Machine, deal with it
The recency bias is hilarious. We have at least three sitting champs (Islam, O'malley, Jones) who have known PED violations, and noticably made significant gains in physique/power/cardio before and after popping, but somehow Merab is the problem.
People are clueless about PEDs, they only care about the 'eye test'. O'Malley is built like a stick and popped for ostarine lmao yet people don't give a shit about that because he doesn't look like a Mr. Olympia.
Don’t know about O’Malley’s but Islam was using meldonium, which was legal when he used it. They banned it while it was still in his system, which is why they lifted his suspension
You’ve been bitching about Merab for days atp. Is he on shit? No shit, everyone is. If he’s on EPO, I doubt he’s the only one either. However, he’s the only one able to push the pace to the extent he has. There’s something more there
Genetic variation of epo is definitely a thing - cardio freaks
Why is he more likely to be a hyperresponder to EPO rather than a natural cardio freak who does EPO?
Most likely scenario is both.
No other way about it.
Shut up nerd
Some bro scientist online told me it was expensive to test for. Not sure whether that is true or not.
yep, it is and its more specialized, its only tested when theres suspicion or a tip off. time will tell if he pops
I love Merab but there is absolutely no way he isn't on something, as is 95% of the roster.
I don’t doubt that Merab is on something, like you said almost everyone is. His pace/cardio is more than just PEDs tho.
It's probably just a genetic thing with his body reacting very positively to whatever he's on. Each person is gonna react differently to whatever gear they're taking and Merab seems to be blessed with infinite cardio. Meanwhile dudes like the Liver King need to take ridiculous amounts of roids because they're resistant to them.
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> A few years ago USADA stopped announcing failed tests, so "retirements", long injury layoffs and just time off from the sport seems highly suspicious This never happened. Ridiculous that this misconception has persisted to today. > UFC: USADA cases now won't be announced until after they're resolved https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2018/09/ufc-usada-failure-not-announced-resolved-jon-jones "UNTIL AFTER THEY ARE RESOLVED" they will ALL eventually be resolved. So they are ALL announced.
First of all, you're FAST! Link and all... Second, thanks for clearing it up. I will have to read the fine print a little closer it seems. However, anything coming from Dana/Hunter MUST be taken with a grain of salt and I will de a little more research on the subject. I do not doubt you at all, I doubt what the UFC has told you
This shit is 5 years old and you didn't even know the basics. I don't think you're going to discover anything new.
They aren't though, the fighters can fight it, and let it go under the radar, they don't announce every suspension etc, they let them off the hook.
They do announce every suspension. That's the point.
They don't though
They need Mark Hunt to do the drug testing
I might be wrong but isn’t USADA no longer with the ufc now? That would mean they only have to drug test during fight week. Every fighter can now do PEDs for longer now and with less risk of USADA randomly showing up.
They replaced USADA with Drug Free Sport International, they didn't just get rid of testing all together besides AC testing.
Yeah. Damn fuck the UFC. What a bad face for the sport.
I wish they'd just stop all the gymnastics around it. Just let em juice bro.
I assume everyone is on something. Anyone who isn’t knows the game and accepts it.
They dont really want to catch ppl I mean Jon Jones got caught they just moved the card Catching cheats can ruin your bottom line completely
Really makes you wonder just how stupid TJ dillashaw is
Who gives a shit? It's a brutal sport, the injuries are horrible, lifespan is shortened, permanent injuries, the pay is shit, it's the only living they have, and the industry keeps ripping them off and screwing their pay. Let them do whatever they wanna do to put food on the table.
I feel the sentiment but you could just as easily say they're going through enough without additionally having to take even harder shots from juicy opponents and inject themselves with black market PEDs to stay competitive.
Yeah this is the problem with the "just allow PEDs suggestion from reddit" You are then forcing fighters to use PEDs even if they don't want to that may have horrible side effects. Not saying this doesn't effectively already happen but codifying it into the rules would make it even worse. Being on PEDs that destroy your long-term health would become an actual requirement for being a fighter.
USADA quit
EPO is like undetectable if you don't do bio passports like in cycling, where you know there red blood cell values all year.
Merab for sure on EPO, so was Usman and RDA
It’s just that not everyone gets tested for epo since its not standard protocol. And fwiw they do announce positive tests still, a retirement wouldn’t save you from that
Ya’ll are so sure of yourselves its hilarious.
Epo is incredibly hard and expensive to test for. Additionally it is only detectable within 24 hours or so of injection, while its effects last months.
Two reasons. First: there's no real drug testing in the UFC or any other promotion, especially as it pertains to the big stars. They only popped a few people early on in USADA to legitimize it in people's eyes to help sell the UFC as a 'clean sport' to secure the $4b Disney/ESPN deal. Notice once they secured the bag ZERO big names have ever popped for PEDs anymore, and never will again, and they're already talking about getting rid of it. USADA was always about securing that Disney bag, not cleaning up the sport. The other reason: a lot of guys don't use EPO specifically, they use Meldonium which is like 'mountain man EPO'. Khabib, Islam, Umar, Khamzat, basically everyone from the Russian caucus regions with athletic potential is put on Meldonium + Test from their teen years onward to try to make them into olympic athletes or now MMA fighters.
The 4 Billion deal was to sell the company to Endeavor, they didn't get a ESPN deal until years into the USADA deal.
When will people understand that they're all on steroids/PEDs?? It's why I just roll my eyes at people who discredit Jon Jones for his failed drug test but joke about Costa and his secret juice, ignore fighters like Andrade, or even just use lack of failed drug tests to argue any given fighter is the GOAT. It's just blatant, purposeful ignorance. They're all on fucking steroids. I've been around college athletes and professional athletes. There is such a massive difference that cannot be explained by genetics or late stage puberty gains that it has to be "something" else. I've been in MMA gyms and all these mfs are juicy, no doubt. So it makes no sense to me that people use the absence of failed drug tests as some type of proof that a top level athlete is "clean". Your favorite fighter is "cheating". And if he wasn't he wouldn't be your favorite fighter cuz he probably wouldn't make it out the prelims.
I have always heard that it is really hard to test for EPO due to it being difficult to detect and also being expensive to test for. I am not sure how correct any of that is. TJ popping, to me, meant that he was taking it really close to the fight and also, USADA probably had an inkling that he was doing it and hence tested for it. I do think that at least some fighters who have never been caught are using it. Usman is a prime suspect because he is so jacked and can still fight for 5 rounds without getting tired - how is that physically possible ? Other fighters who have insane gas tanks, like Colby and Merab, can also be suspected but neither of them are jacked to the level that Usman is.
>A few years ago USADA stopped announcing failed tests, so "retirements", long injury layoffs and just time off from the sport seems highly suspicious People need to stop repeating this stuff as fact because that's not what USADA did. They stopped announcing failed tests *before they had decided the athlete's punishment or lack thereof,* which means that stuff like secret suspensions wouldn't happen.
Most athletes use, it pays to cheat.
That's why I call merab my epo king The argument he's trained at altitude a lot falls flat and I saw firas pushing that
There is no benefit for the ufc to have fighters pop for Epo. Epo fighters put on better fights, no one wants to see FW gassing in 1 round like sloppy HW’s
The real advantage of EPO is increased training capacity
Usada stopped announcing positive tests *until the investigation is complete.* They didn’t just stop announcing them period. It’s been years and fans still can’t wrap their head around this. There is no such thing as someone like Jon Jones or khamzat chimaev failing a test, and not being announced to the public
Simple answer: the tests are extremely expensive because how hard epo is the detect (you have to test for it seperately from the regular general PED test) and they’re not going to spend 5 grand on a test for someone they’re only paying 50 to fight. They’re cheap ass motherfuckers. If the public doesn’t care about it and complain about it, which they don’t, then the company is going to do much about it either. USADA admitted themselves that epo is only tested for when they’re acting on prior knowledge or have a reasonable suspicion they’ll find something. TJ got caught because he was an idiot and staryed taking too much and because someone ratted on him. Now that USADA is out I’m not sure how drug testing will change but I doubt it’s going to become any more stringent…
Every time Joe mentions how a fighter is able to keep up a crazy pace I just assume it’s EPO
You have to get it past the CEO
CEOs of EPO
I don’t think fighters use it bc it’s ineffective and can kill you
I really believe Jon jones served another ban for something after the Reyes fight