Steroids and PEDs are a hot topic in MMA again this week, with the UFC announcing a new, comprehensive drug policy that has signaled a new level of commitment by the world’s biggest MMA company. This week, Bellator, the second biggest MMA company in the world, had two fighters fail tests coming off their Bellator 137 event on May 15. Mike Richman tested positive for a PED, and surging veteran Fernando Gonzalez tested positive for marijuana, and the occurrence opens the question of whether Bellator should follow suit and institute a policy like the UFC.
The UFC is now in a partnership with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to work on year-round random testing for the entire UFC roster of more than 600 fighters.
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The news comes at a bad time for Bellator, whose public relations capabilities are just a fraction of what the UFC has, as they are heading into their critical Bellator 138 event scheduled for June 19. That event is headlined by the Ken Shamrock vs Kimbo Slice match.
The 14-fight card is going to take place in Missouri, a state whose commission last year handled less than 50 total MMA and boxing events combined. It is unlikely that the money generated by the commission is enough to pay for anything but the most rudimentary tests. Frankly, the lineup for this fight has several athletes who have been caught or have been accused of steroid use. The sophisticated testing the UFC will be doing in conjunction with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is simply out of reach for the Missouri commission.
Bellator airs on SpikeTV and is owned by Viacom, a huge conglomerate with deep pockets. The company could likely pay for a similar policy, but will they? The truth is over the years Viacom has really not committed much effort to improving their product, and their cross-over promotions with their Pro Wrestling group TnA were abject failures.
Estimating Bellator’s roster at roughly half of what the UFC has, the cost will still be approaching $10,000,000 to comprehensively test every athlete on the Bellator roster, and Viacom doesnt likely have the stomach to eat tat cost. So what could happen is Bellator will likely ride it out until the pressure becomes too much and then they fold, which would be just great by the UFC’s standards.
