Exclusive: Sean Sherk Talks Steroid Allegations, Says BJ Penn “Doesn’t Know What It’s Like” to Train Hard

Sean Sherk isn’t what most would call a fan favorite. Sure, he has his hardcore contingent of supporters, but even when he reigned as the UFC lightweight champ he faced criticism from detractors who found his style of fighting less than enthralling to watch. That criticism reached a fever pitch after a positive steroid test following his title defense against Hermes Franca last summer, which resulted in Sherk being stripped of the title.

“The Muscle Shark” has repeatedly professed his innocence on the steroid charge, filing an appeal with the CSAC and taking repeated polygraph tests to try and clear his name. Now the former UFC lightweight champion talks with Cage Potato about the steroid accusations, his attempts to prove his innocence, and the war of words with current title-holder B.J. Penn, as they prepare to meet in the Octagon at UFC 84.

CagePotato.com: So how’s training going? As we near the fight, are you backing off the really hard training?

Sean Sherk: No, I’m still training hard up until two days before the fight. Still doing everything I normally do, all the cardio, all the hard workouts. That’s the way I’ve always done it for over thirty fights. That’s the way we did it in wrestling and so that’s the way I’m used to doing it.

I imagine by this point you’re pretty sick of being asked about the positive steroid test.

No, I’m used to it. I kind of expect it now.

In that case, let’s get right into it. You’ve maintained your innocence throughout this whole thing. If you didn’t take steroids, what do you think caused the positive test?

I can’t say exactly why it came up positive, but I know that there were definitely some problems with the testing procedures at Quest Laboratories. The way they did their testing, there was some carryover in the machine from previous tests before they tested my sample.

That seems like a pretty big problem to me right there. If there’s carryover in the machine, should you use that machine to do that test? I wouldn’t think so. Their chain of custody was completely shot. They had no chain of custody. Those were the two main issues.

I tested all the supplements I was taking and I did find contamination in one of them, a testosterone booster. I don’t know if that caused it or not, but I was surprised to find contamination in a supplement like that.

Has that made you paranoid about taking supplements in general?

Oh yeah, for sure. I cut the amount of supplements I was taking in half. I was taking about 25 different supplements and I cut that in half. I still feel the same, so I didn’t really need to be taking all those supplements to begin with. I’m just hoping that by cutting my supplements I can decrease the risk of this happening again.

I didn’t know you could go into a store like a GNC and buy something that would have illegal stuff in it, but I guess you can. I was stunned. I didn’t know that. I’ve also started doing my own pre-testing, which I’ll do before every fight now just to be sure.

Even as you maintain your innocence, the court of public opinion in MMA seems to be largely against you. What do you think you could do to clear your name that would satisfy your detractors?

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Exclusive: Monte Cox Talks Rothwell-Arlovski Rumors, Affliction, Adrenaline, and More

(That’s Monte on the right, there)

Monte Cox is a busy man. With his own MMA organization, Adrenaline, set to put on their first show on June 14th, and with many of the high-profile fighters that he manages facing some interesting career decisions, he’s in no danger of getting bored.

Cage Potato got in touch with Cox earlier today to discuss rumors that Ben Rothwell would be facing Andrei Arlovski in the upcoming Affliction event, and after a little prodding we got much more than we expected from MMA’s super-manager, as he discussed a range of topics, from the chances of success for Affliction to the problems plaguing MMA organizations on the whole.

CagePotato.com: So Monte, what can you tell me about Ben Rothwell and Andrei Arlovski?

Well, they’re both heavyweights.

Thanks. Are they going to be heavyweights who fight each other in this upcoming Affliction show?

The only thing I can say is Rothwell is going to fight in Affliction. It’s up to them who he fights. I’d love it to be Andrei, but they’re the ones who ultimately get to make that decision. They had at one point talked about having Ben fight Aleksander Emelianenko, and then of course they talked about Andrei, but I don’t know what his contract status is. He was supposed to be free from his UFC contract on May 1, but I honestly don’t know if it will be Ben and Andrei fighting in that show. [Affliction] is supposed to have a press conference in the next week or two to announce some of that, but I honestly can’t say at this point.

It seems like having guys like Rothwell and Tim Sylvia signed to Adrenaline, your organization, and having them also fight in Affliction makes it difficult for you to schedule your events.

A little bit, but I said from the beginning that we were going to be a different type of organization. One of those main differences is we allow our fighters to fight other places. If one of our guys gets a good opportunity somewhere else, then we don’t want to keep him from that. It doesn’t help anyone.

The rumors have been flying about how much Affliction is spending on this first show. Since you manage a couple of the guys who are fighting in it, what can you tell us about the amount of money they’re spending? Some estimates have it at $6 million. Do you think that’s accurate?

I really can’t say what they’re paying out. The only people I know about are my guys, but if everything I’ve heard is correct they’ll have one of the biggest fighter payouts in history.

Is that a cause for concern about their long-term viability? How long can they keep shelling out that kind of money?

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Exclusive Interview: Jens Pulver

“1! 4! 5!”

Such was the battle cry of Jens Pulver after his 35-second submission victory over Cub Swanson at WEC 31 last December. Though some fans wondered if Pulver’s previous two losses in the UFC (to Joe Lauzon and BJ Penn) signaled that his career was heading toward its conclusion, the sheer dominance displayed in his first match as a featherweight proved that a new chapter was just beginning. And along with his fierce reputation, the win was enough to get him an immediate shot at the WEC’s featherweight title, which has been held by Urijah Faber since March 2006.

In his four title defenses, Faber has looked absolutely unbeatable. But he’s never faced anybody as seasoned or explosive as Pulver, whose 21 career victories include seven via stoppage in 60 seconds or less. The matchup, which goes down at WEC 34 (June 1st; Sacramento, CA), is easily the biggest 145-pound MMA contest in American history, and has all the ingredients to become an all-time classic. In advance of that fight, we called Jens at his home base in Bettendorf, Iowa, to discuss “The California Kid,” his legacy, video games, and how his old rival BJ Penn will do against Sean Sherk at UFC 84.

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: Talk to me about Urijah Faber — what do you think of him as a person?
JENS PULVER: Oh, I think he’s a great person. I like Urijah, man. He comes in great shape, likes to be explosive, and he’s really inventive out there in the cage. I think he’s done a real good job taking the reigns at 145, representing it, and trying to build it up.

So you don’t see yourself having a heated personal rivalry with him, like you had with Cub Swanson and BJ Penn? We’re not going to see any trash talking?
No, there’s no bad blood, no trash talking; it’s utmost respect. We’re gonna go out there and show everybody that we don’t have to have animosity to fight our hearts out. We’re going to prove that.

How much have you been studying Faber’s past fights?
I study habits. You don’t want to get too hard into what he’s done in the past, because he may change it up for me. So I just try to study things like how willing he is to stand up and when he’s going to shoot for takedowns. I study how hard a person fights, how hard they push things, and Urijah’s pretty much shown that he doesn’t fold. He had Curran on his back for almost a whole round and never panicked. He just stayed solid and waited for his opportunity.

Have you noticed any weaknesses in his game that you’ll try to exploit?
I wouldn’t call them weaknesses at all — like I said, he’s a great champ — but I have my plusses, and that’s what I’ll be going in there to exploit. I want to end up on top, I don’t want to be working my guard too much, and I want to control the pace. If he wants to box, I definitely want to be there to counterpunch and blast him with shots if I get those opportunities. If he wants to wrestle, I’m more than willing to use my ground game. It’s always been instinctual for me to keep fights standing, but the more I’m training and having fun on the ground, I’m trying to change those instincts.

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Exclusive: Randy Couture Talks Fedor-Sylvia, Being the “Banned Brand”, and More

MMA legend Randy Couture finds himself in a strange position these days. An ongoing legal battle with the UFC threatens his future as a fighter, and his affiliation with clothier-turned-MMA promoter Affliction has prompted the UFC to keep him and the “banned brand” off any of their broadcasts. Recently Couture talked with Cage Potato about his life as a fighter, the future of MMA, and this summer’s Fedor-Sylvia bout.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Randy. How’s everything at Xtreme Couture? It seems like you guys have so many fighters in so many different organizations now. Does it ever get hard to keep track of who is fighting and where?

No, it’s not too hard. We’ve actually just got a big grease board and we just write who’s fighting and where and when and we do a pretty good job of keeping track of it that way. We’ve got new gyms opening up in Long Island and in Toronto. Everything is going really great.

What are your thoughts on Tim Sylvia signing to fight Fedor this summer? You’ve beat Tim, and the Fedor fight is the one you wanted more than any other. How does it make you feel to see Tim get that chance before you do?

I think it’s going to be a great fight. Tim’s a seasoned veteran and he presents some unique challenges with his height and his size. People knock Fedor because he hasn’t fought any top guys recently, but Fedor’s an excellent fighter. It should be very interesting to see how he handles this challenge. I know I’ll be interested to see it. It’s going to be a good one and I hope to be right there at ringside when it happens.

But Tim got let out of his UFC contract and that’s why he can take this fight. Does it bother you that it happened that way for him and not for you?

He didn’t get let go so he could do this fight, he got let go because the UFC didn’t want to pay someone that much money to fight on the undercard. They knew he wasn’t going to fight for a title any time soon and he only had one more fight on his contract, so they made the decision to let him go for financial reasons.

I can see how it made sense for them to let him go and it doesn’t make sense to want to let me go. I’ve got the belt, so that’s different. The way I look at it, that’s his good fortune to be able to go take the fight with Fedor. I’m not upset about it. I’ve still got a few more good fights left it me.

Tito Ortiz recently made some public statements about the lack of respect he feels from the UFC and from Dana White. He referred to the way they no longer show you on pay-per-views when you’re there cornering your fighters, never even mention your name or your gym. How much is this stuff about respect and how much is about money?

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Exclusive: Mac Danzig Talks Latest Win, TUF Stigma, and More

(’I'm here to eat some hummus and kick some ass. I am all out of hummus.’)

Mac Danzig may be one of the most accomplished fighters yet to win Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling the same pressure to live up to the hype that other winners have labored under. His submission victory over Mark Bocek on his first UFC pay-per-view this past Saturday was a good start to his UFC career, but Danzig is hoping that it’s just the beginning.

In this exclusive Cage Potato interview Danzig talks about the price of celebrity, about his future in the UFC’s lightweight division, and about his hard-fought victory in Montreal.

CagePotato.com: First of all, congratulations on your victory. Looking at this matchup beforehand, it seemed like you were a pretty heavy favorite, 5-1 according to some of the betting lines. Were you expecting Mark Bocek to be as tough as he was?

Yeah, I knew it would be a really tough fight. I thought it had potential to be tougher than it was. The betting lines don’t really mean anything to me and I try not to look at them. I was kind of pissed when I did see them, actually, because I thought to myself, ‘Man, they’re not giving this guy enough credit.’

It’s kind of a tough situation for me because everyone’s just expecting me to steamroll this guy. He didn’t have a big name and so people didn’t realize how tough he was. It’s really a no-win situation because people just expect me to win and if I don’t it really messes up my status in the sport. If I do win, it’s like, hey, no big deal. But I knew how tough he was. He and I have a common opponent, this guy named John Mahlow, and he took me to a decision while Mark Bocek submitted him in the first round. So I knew what he was capable of and I knew it was going to be a tough fight.

Toward the end of the fight when he was cut and his eye was swelling up pretty badly it looked like you were able to land the straight right at will, like he couldn’t see it coming at all. Was that something you noticed right away and did you try and exploit that?

When I first cut him with that knee and I saw how bad it was I thought there was a chance they might stop it because of the cut. But I wasn’t going to wait around for that to happen. I wanted to finish him. It was a pretty nasty cut, though. The blood was squirting about two feet out at one point, so I was thinking to circle to my right and stay on his left side where he might have trouble seeing.

When the doctors checked him out he got a little breather and he came back in there with a sense of desperation, trying to swing for the fences and get a knockout. I felt like I was on my way to setting up a pretty good knockout before they stopped it to look at the cut, but who knows.

Going into this fight – your first since winning The Ultimate Fighter – what was the pressure like? Were you feeling that burden of being a TUF winner?

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Matt Serra: The Underdog…Again

(“Adrian!”)

By CagePotato Guest Contributor Brian Knapp

Matt Serra had never finished a fight with his fists until April 7, 2007. Talk about perfect timing. On that night, Serra shook the mixed martial arts world to its foundation, as he overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to topple a man who had been universally received as the planet’s premiere 170-pound fighter.

A full year has passed since the 33-year-old Long Island, N.Y., native clubbed Georges St. Pierre and stopped the favored French Canadian by first-round TKO to capture the welterweight championship at UFC 69 in Houston. Goliath had met his match inside the hallowed Octagon, and the sport sat in stunned silence.

With less than a week to go before their rematch at UFC 83 on Saturday night at Montreal’s Bell Centre, pundits lend little credence to Serra’s flawless performance 12 months ago. Many consider it a fluke, a stroke of luck, a hiccup in the space-time continuum. A coaching stint on The Ultimate Fighter and a back injury have kept Serra out of the eight-sided cage since his historic upset, and St. Pierre has been nothing shy of impeccable in back-to-back wins over welterweight contender Josh Koscheck and future Hall-of-Famer Matt Hughes. Serra’s odds are long, but he embraces them nonetheless.

“They can look at it any way they want,” he says. “I know I’m the underdog, and I feel very comfortable in that role.”

St. Pierre, the thoroughbred who had all but cleaned out the UFC’s 170-pound division, never got out of the gate the first time the two met. Rocked repeatedly by Serra’s heavy hands, he wound up on his back, where he ate punches in jackhammer-like succession and was unable to mount a defense. Even so, Serra’s respect for St. Pierre’s physical capabilities runs deep.

“He’s dangerous on all fronts,” Serra says. “Georges is very well-rounded. He’s got very good wrestling besides the striking. Standing up, off my back … everywhere, basically, I have to be on my A-game.”

Having long compared himself to the lead character in the Rocky series, Serra figures to be confronted by the most hostile of crowds as he ventures into St. Pierre’s backyard in Montreal. His support will likely be limited to his cornermen.

“I don’t expect to get cheered walking out,” Serra says. “It’s not a problem. I think I’m finally going to feel what Tim Sylvia feels when he fights anywhere.”

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Monday Morning Hangover: Strikeforce, O’Brien, Couture + More

(Jake O’Brien: Too boring for the UFC? Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

— The debut of Strikeforce on NBC on Saturday night was hindered by a lack of participation by major NBC affiliates. In Houston, Without a Trace aired in the timeslot Strikeforce was supposed to have; in New York there was just a black screen for 30 minutes. Steve Sievert reports that Strikeforce purchased the late night/early morning timeslot from NBC, meaning the show is closer to an infomercial than a network sports broadcast. Hopefully it’ll help harvest some new fans for Strikeforce, because the March 29th Showtime broadcast of “Shamrock vs. Le” only pulled in a 1.2 rating (287,00 viewers), which is lower than Showtime’s viewership for “Street Certified” (1.9) and Shamrock’s previous two headlining fights against Cesar Gracie and Phil Baroni (1.6, 1.7). If you missed Strikeforce on NBC’s premiere, click here.

— Following the first loss in his eleven-fight career (against Andrei Arlovski at UFC 82), the UFC has cut ties with Jake O’Brien; he had two fights left on his current contract. Reportedly, the UFC simply had too many fighters under contract, and are in the midst of a talent purge. We can only assume that O’Brien’s last three fights, in which he bored audiences with dull wrestling and lay-and-pray tactics, soured his image in the eyes of the UFC top brass. O’Brien’s manager Ken Pavia confirmed that O’Brien has agreed to a two-fight deal with the Palace Fighting Championship organization. “Had we known that his tenure with [the UFC] was at risk when we were presented with the Arlovski fight, we may have approached it differently,” Pavia said. “I don’t think they’ve seen the true Jake. He’s still a kid, and he’s still learning.” Before he joined the UFC, all of O’Brien’s fights ended in first-round KO/TKO victories.

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