UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo whose name is attached to the story. Aldo is signed to fight Conor McGregor at July’s UFC 189 event, in what the UFC has promoted as the biggest fight of the year. But if some type of issue appears with Aldo and the testing procedure, could the UFC lose the match?
MMA.tv reported that Aldo was visited at his training camp in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , as Ben Mosier of the Drug Free Sports Lab was sent to collect the sample. The story states that the sample was given by Aldo, but doubts over the process caused the Brazilian Athletic Commission (CABMMA) and the Brazilian FBI to become involved. The Federal police confiscated the sample and Aldo is apparently going to submit another sample in the coming days, as Mosier’s paperwork to work in Brazil was questioned. Mosier was then slapped with a fine and given a week to leave the country. Aldo’s test will instead be handled by CABMMA.
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The article also loosely refers to an estimated cost of $45,000 per fighter per year to handle the testing, which amounts to roughly $30 million. It will be interesting to see how the saga in Brazil plays out, because it will be a blueprint of what they will be facing in each location. Countries with a language barrier and different norms and customs could present all kinds of logistical nightmares.
For instance, someone is going to have to go to Poland to test Joanna Jedrzejczyk, the women’s featherweight champion, and Poland is a very unique culture to deal with. Good luck heading over to Kazakhstan to get a sample for Khabib Nurmagomedov, and the UFC and their team does not even have the comfort of having some infrastructure in that country because they have never run a show there. Show up making demands of a top caliber fighter in his gym where the person collecting the test is not known, and some people could actually be put in dangerous situations.
And here is the other question – who is Ben Moiser and what is the Drug Free Sports Lab he is from? Is he with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency? Is the company he is with the same “Drug Free Sport” company from Kansas City, Missouri that has many of the big pro-leagues as customers? One article from the New York Times featuring the lab stated: “Critics, however, question how rigorous the company’s programs are. They say Drug Free Sport often fails to adhere to tenets of serious drug testing, like random, unannounced tests; collection of samples by trained, independent officials; and testing for a comprehensive list of recreational and performance-enhancing drugs.”
So if Mosier is with that same group, it would appear an example of past criticisms. And if it is not the same group, then who are they?
