Opinion: ‘The Buck is Back!’ and Other Political UFC Nightmares

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This is a week for staunch mixed martial arts folks to take note of boxing, and I certainly don't mean the perfunctory dance for dollars between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Andre Berto.

Boxing's foremost investigative journalist Thomas Hauser on Wednesday dropped the provocative and revelatory “Can Boxing Trust USADA?” The piece is a thorough and thoughtful critique of the United States Anti-Doping Agency's questionable and preferential treatment of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and, by extension, other Al Haymon-advised fighters. At the heart of the piece is USADA allowing Mayweather to receive intravenous rehydration after weighing in for his May 2 clash with Manny Pacquiao.

As is the case with Hauser's polemics, the piece is worth a read regardless of your affinity for boxing, so long as you're someone with an interest in either sports, or at least a juicy story. If you're reading my words here, though, you're likely an MMA fan, and therefore, Hauser's takedown should matter considerably more to you, as it's the USADA that has been tasked with keeping the Ultimate Fighting Championship clean in its new age of ramped-up drug testing.

Unfortunately, Hauser's claims are more serious and damning than just the “USADA let Floyd have an IV.” His multi-headed attack poses many problematic claims: Not only was Mayweather allowed this IV, banned by World Anti-Doping Agency code, but his testing contract states that he could apply for a retroactive therapeutic use exemption after the bout -- which he did -- without ever alerting the Nevada Athletic Commission. Hauser further alleges, and quite smartly so, that the USADA's interest in boxing is purely financial, that its testing is less comprehensive and more expensive than viable alternates such as the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency and that the outfit's egregious mishandling of Erik Morales' failed drug test in regards to his 2012 bout with Danny Garcia exemplifies the blind eye favoritism towards Haymon, USADA's biggest boxing backer.

Ahead of Mayweather's 49th fight and inevitable conquest against Berto on Saturday, Hauser's story is the focal point in boxing, but in the MMA sphere, this reportage puts major responsibility back in the hands of the UFC, right where the company doesn't want it.

When the UFC and USADA announced their tie-up in June, it wasn't just the public-relations antidote the UFC needed; it was one it wanted. For years, Zuffa demonstrated a bizarre, craven attitude toward PEDs in MMA, best exemplified by the testosterone replacement therapy debacle. In a three-year span, you had UFC President Dana White and UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta publicly doing multiple 180s on the viability and appropriateness of TRT in MMA, until the ever-populist UFC finally read the tea leaves of public outcry and realized it was time to clean the house. Not only did the USADA announcement give the UFC the veneer of competitive and social responsibility, but it also compartmentalized that responsibility.

For years, the UFC's defense to any critical inquisition about overseeing the sport, specifically in relation to PEDs, was White bellowing, “We are regulated by the government!” and its subordinate follow-up, “Other people run from regulation. We run toward it!” This, of course, is a classic carnival explanation and belies the truest truth: Government regulation is ideal for the UFC because it confers legitimacy on its product, while allowing it to pass the buck to the dreaded “government” on any complicated or sticky topic. Handing over extra in- and out-of-competition drug testing to the USADA was a newer, heavier-hitting version of that, a familiar trope on steroids, pardon the pun.

Now, in light of Hauser's article, the USADA's combat sports reputation is being put on a spectrum ranging from “incompetent” to “corrupt.” Hauser points out that in 18 boxing matches under VADA auspices, three parties (the aforementioned Berto, Lamont Peterson and Brandon Rios) have tested positive for banned substances, while in 46 bouts overseen by the USADA, the only violation found was the aforementioned Morales, whose story may have never come out if not for intrepid reporting.

VADA President Dr. Margaret Goodman has previously stated that testing the UFC's roster in and out of competition for her agency would cost $3,250 per fighter, and Hauser suggests that USADA is overcharging to regulate combat sports. Therefore, with the UFC's roster swelling to well over 500 fighters, plus overhead, let's say that the company is paying the USADA $2-3 million dollars for its efforts, while acknowledging the inexact science. If the UFC cannot be absolved by the theoretically righteous, independent scrutiny of the USADA, what the hell is it paying for?

Even if all of Hauser's claims were false -- in reality, the complete opposite appears to be true -- the appearance of impropriety is the real devil at work. As mentioned, the UFC is paying for in- and out-of-competition testing, but only a naive nitwit would think Zuffa wants every cheating fighter on the roster to actually be caught and punished. Unlike the well-worn “Government!” excuse, the USADA is not a necessary evil; Zuffa is paying the organization. More to the point, the UFC is paying the USADA to be a critical buffer, an optical “fixer,” in a time of necessary respectability politics, a firm voice reassuring you that they're going to get the bad guys and gals. If the USADA cannot be the drug-testing white knight, it puts that oft-passed buck right back in the UFC's hand.

Worse, it introduces the necessary onus of overseeing the overseers for the UFC, something Zuffa was so keen to shy away from even when invoking the “Government!” excuse, even when White was routinely blasting referee Steve Mazzagatti. Now, the UFC is faced with the unenviable task of having to maintain public faith and support in the USADA -- its business partner and one it is not going to part with so quickly -- while seriously reflecting on how badly it wants to catch cheaters. The UFC will lose face with the savvy public if it backs the USADA too hard in light of this story, but it risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater and incurring whatever wrath the USADA can muster if it is too sharp in any critique.

It is a messy, precarious, politicized decision, one that risks legitimate intellectual backlash and requires careful articulation and delivery. It is exactly the kind of decision the UFC hates to make. Worse, the company's chief consigliere in these kinds of philosophically trying times is usually public sentiment. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as “Please Dana, catch the cheaters!” The UFC's drug testing operation is not entirely, categorically undermined by the USADA's boxing misdeeds, but it is necessarily called into question despite still being in its infancy. It is not a black and white issue with which Zuffa can easily take the temperature of the masses via media and Twitter, and it's hard to intervene on something like the UFC-USADA testing relationship when it is so embryonic.

Again, this is not just about drug testing. With the money invested, the UFC could have cobbled together its own in-house drug testing program, but no sane person would have respected its authority or legitimacy. The UFC bought a service and a brand from the USADA, and with something like large-scale drug testing in sports, if the latter is impeached, the former almost doesn't matter. Assume the UFC does everything in its power to assure its USADA program is rigorous, by the book and unfailingly transparent. More optimistically, assume that the consequence of this is athlete deterrence, which after all, is one of the goals of testing. At this juncture, if UFC athletes were ostensibly clean as a whistle, the USADA's prior boxing transgressions would lead most to question if the agency's MMA oversight was equally as inept.

If you think the “success” of drug testing is primarily manifested through catching cheaters, that is even more problematic. USADA CEO Travis Tygart has stressed that the UFC will have “no involvement” in testing procedures for its athletes, but is it an appropriate response for the UFC to essentially tell the USADA to “try harder” catch cheaters to satisfy a philosophical quota or burden of proof? If we end up with another UFC title fight with a champion and challenger accusing one another of being on steroids, how even-handed is it for the UFC to push for harder testing to combat the USADA's shaky image? If a notable fighter comes off of a drug test failure, should that fighter's promoter really be the one leading the charge to test him or her more frequently? It's an insane proposition before you even consider the implications in the company's ongoing fight to have its athletes remain independent contractors instead of employees.

The UFC's recurring nightmare is back; as it turns out, the USADA is not a panacea. The buck is back in the UFC's hand and now comes with more difficult, pernicious, political questions: How do we support the USADA without looking complicit in our own testing? How can we exert our influence to ensure testing is done, with the utmost diligence, without being meddlesome? How badly do we want to catch cheaters? What are we paying for? How can we get this buck out of our hands again?

These are the questions Zuffa hates to ask itself and hates worse to act on. For now, the UFC can contemplate and strategize while taking the first necessary step, the kind of step it hates to take: Keeping watch over its new, multi-million-dollar watchmen.