Recently, Sean "Muscle Shark" Sherk (32-2-1) was stripped of his lightweight belt after "sorta" losing his appeal to CSAC. While his suspension was reduced from one year to six months, the fine was upheld, and he wasn't absolved of responsibility for having elevated levels of the anabolic steroid Nandrolone in his body. Even though Sherk was stripped of his title, he will get an immediate title shot against the winner of Stevenson v. Penn.
Sherk blamed the test results on a tainted supplement he took. The supplement was supposedly from the Xyience brand, a brand which used to sponsor Sherk and many UFC fighters. Apparently he went to long lengths to disprove the test results, such as taking a lie detector, but he was not able to overturn the positive test. Apparently, Phil Baroni was confronted with a similar situation. Both fighters were taking an extreme amount of supplements per day.
The sport has to be known as one that is clean. A speculation that MMA fighters are steroid users will only hurt the sports image, and hurt the fighters in the long run. With side effects such as acne, anaphylactic shock, birth defects, kidney failure, blood clotting changes, cardiovascular disease, depression, stunted growth, sexual dysfunction, hair loss, headache, blood pressure changes, liver stress, prostate enlargement, lowering of life expectancy ect, ect, ect, something has to be done to keep the fighters safe.
Steroid use should be frowned upon more by the UFC, and the UFC should set its own penalties for use. The UFC must also take a long look at supplements. Especially ones, (cough-Xyience), that have been known to produce false positives. Maybe, supplements should be banned altogether, or maybe the UFC can produce their own supplement line. Regardless, I would like to see the UFC confront the issue and do their best to rectify the situation for the sake of the sport and the fighters health.
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