They may have reduced his steroid suspension from one year to six months because of the reasonable doubt he raised during his appeals, but in the eyes of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Sean Sherk is still a filthy steroid cheat whose urine, if ingested, would immediately cause testicle shrinkage in men and testicle growth in women. So to be extra sure that there aren’t any shenanigans come fight night, the NSAC voted yesterday that Sean Sherk would be required to undergo additional drug testing prior to UFC 84 (May 24th, Las Vegas). Sherk has agreed to submit the extra wee-wee during the week of April 21st, because apparently next week isn’t convenient for him, clean-piss-wise. Anyway, it’s surely just an insulting formality. Even if Sherk cycled in the past — and since nobody was ever able to refute his “chain of custody fuckup” argument, we’re not passing judgment on the guy — there’s no way he’d have the balls to juice up in preparation for his first fight after a suspension.

According to a report on MMAPredictions:

Sherk has already submitted all the necessary medical and administrative paperwork for his license to be approved. A commission member asked Sherk, “Mr. Sherk, do you understand that the NCAC will hold you responsible for anything that comes up positive in your test, irrespective of your knowingly taking a certain steroid?”

“Yes I understand that I am responsible for anything that goes into my body,” Sherk answered.

Unfortunately, they judge you on what comes out. Don’t worry man, you’ll get the hang of this…

Sam Caplan: You made the accusation in an interview with MMAMadness.com that Ken Shamrock has been using steroids his whole life. MMAjunkie.com published a statement earlier this week in which Ken made a full denial of your claims. Do you stand by your statement?

Frank Shamrock: Oh yeah. Yeah. I apologize; I thought it was common knowledge. I don’t know why Ken would lie about it. I was the guy who picked him up after he had his bitch tits removed.

(Source: ProElite.com)

Well, basically.

On a recent airing of the Tagg Radio Network’s Lights Out Show, Hermes Franca discussed that little steroid misunderstanding he had last summer at UFC 73, where both him and his opponent Sean Sherk were busted for ‘roids after their lightweight title fight; Franca has subsequently been banned from competing in California until July 5th. Unlike Sean Sherk, who absolutely did not take steroids, Franca was apologetic about the situation and chalked it up to a “mistake,” but he did try to pin some of the blame on the pressure-cooker of being a UFC fighter:

When I was hurt, I got lost. I wanted to fight for the belt and make my dreams come true. But [UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva told me that I had to fight Sean Sherk at UFC 73 and there was no other way around it without him finding another opponent. A lot of guys in the division wouldn’t be able to fight, like Kenny Florian. I brought up Roger Huerta but Joe said that he wasn’t ready. So I took the steroids.

If you’re unfamiliar, Franca’s pre-fight injury situation is described here. To him, it was a choice between taking steroids and not being able to support his family; like many mixed martial artists, he lives fight-to-fight, financially speaking. And now with a one-year suspension preventing further income, Franca was recently forced to resign from the UFC so he could make money fighting overseas. To make things worse, the CSAC warned Franca that he would have to serve his one-year suspension if he ever planned on fighting in the U.S. again, so he’s basically like a wandering ghost at this point, fighting to survive and unable to return home. The irony is, if he went through the Sherk fight without chemical enhancement, even if he took an ugly loss, he would have probably picked up a win by disqualification — or at least a no-contest and another title shot — because Sherk also pissed dirty.

Anyway, there’s your daily insight into the ugly side of MMA. We’re going to go cry in our car for a while.

(“Do I look like a junkie?”)

Tatame.com is quoting Paulo Filho‘s boxing coach, Josuel Distak, as saying that the WEC middleweight champ will next fight real estate agent Chael Sonnen in a rematch of their December ’07 fight (WEC 31). The last fight ended with Chael Sonnen submitting and claiming he didn’t. Distak claims Paulo “wasn’t well” in that fight and “Sonnen asked for a revenge and we accepted.” We’ll get to see if Chael really has turned a corner – since he was bitch-slapping Paulo for two rounds until the submission – or if Paulo truly “wasn’t well”. That fight made us look a little closer at Filho and the rematch will be very telling.

The excuse coming out of the champ’s camp for his ass-dragging at WEC 31 is that he had some difficulty making the 185 lbs for the fight. Distak is saying they’ll remedy this by moving the fighter up to a light heavy.

“Thanks God this will be Paulão’s last fight at 84 category. After this fight he’ll go up to 93kg category.”

For all you non-metric system Americans, 93kg is 205 pounds. And at light heavyweight, Filho might be a little outsized. Nothing a little juice won’t cure, according to Dan Henderson in a recent MMANews interview.

MMANews.com:What are your thoughts on Paulo Filho?

Dan Henderson: I don’t think he has been very impressive in his last two performances since coming to the US but I think that’s what not being able to use Steroids will do to you.

MMANews.com:Are you saying Filho may be a juicer?

Dan Henderson: Well that’s my opinion anyway. He hasn’t looked good since he left Pride.

MMANews.com: Was steroid abuse a problem in Pride?

Dan Henderson: People didn’t get tested.

MMANews.com: So I suppose if you can get away with it why not.

Dan Henderson: Exactly.

(Keith Kizer can’t wait to stick it to you.)

Recently the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced that they would be conducting random drug tests. Meaning, MMA fighters can be tested at any time, regardless of whether they are scheduled to fight or not. And a missed test gets you a big “F” for fucked. While not a ton of details were provided in the initial announcement, MMA Junkie has since pulled a little more out of the executive director of the NSAC, Keith Kizer.

Although his answers started off like this – “I don’t know off the top of my head. I can’t think of anything specific….it’s hard to know all the possibilities….Ehhh. It’s hard to know in advance.” – he did answer some questions, one of which we already stated: if a fighter looks like he’s changed physically, then he’ll be tested.

Oh yeah, sure, sure. That’s possible. I don’t want to say it would be (a reason), but it could be. That’s a possible deal. I don’t want to say that would be a major reason to test a guy, but that’s a possible reason to test a guy.

Restating the point adds up to: “Yes, that will be the main reason we test a fighter.” But the good thing for fighters who – like those of you who have spent a night downtown because you were with your bud (who had some bud) when he got busted – they won’t be tested just because a fighter they train with got nailed for juicing. Although, Kizer admitted that if you were treated by the same doc or team, they might look into it. Again meaning, “yes.” But don’t misunderstand. No organization that is set up to police people and administer drug tests actually want to bust anyone. Cops don’t enjoy writing you tickets, do they?

(After hours at Team Punishment.)

Bad news for mixed martial artists who’ve figured out that if you stop using steroids at a certain point before your fight, you’ll test negative — the Nevada State Athletic Commission has announced that it will begin random steroid and drug testing for all licensed fighters as well as fighters applying for licenses. As the article explains:

Selection of licensees for testing will be made in one of three ways:
1. Fighters may be randomly chosen for testing.
2. If there is some indication that a fighter is taking a non-approved substance, they may be tested.
3. If a fighter has previously tested positive for using a non-approved substance, they may be tested.

A fighter chosen for testing will be contacted by the Commission directly and given details on the ordering of the test and the timeframe within which testing must occur…If the test is not completed within the designated timeframe or if a fighter fails the test, the Commission may refuse to license the fighter, it may not allow the fighter to compete, and/or the fighter may be subject to disciplinary action.

In other words, steroids are no longer going to be MMA’s dirty little secret; if you look like you’re juicing (see #2), you will be tested, and most likely busted. As it represents another step toward MMA’s legitimacy in the eyes of the general public, we’re all for random testing, invasive as it might be. And we hope every fighter gets this memo, or else we’ll start seeing dozens of them go down in flames. However, for those who’ve relied on chemicals to reach their level of physicality, it may not be easy to just drop the ‘roids altogether. It’s like when Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” series started picking up guys who’d actually seen the show — the threat of public humiliation and imprisonment wasn’t enough of a deterrent for those sexual predators to change their habitual behavior.

Hmm…I’m not sure if that metaphor worked, but basically what I’m trying to say is, Bruce Buffer is a pedophile.

For those of you still holding your breath since UFC 79, you can finally take that breath of cigarette smoke-filled oxygen. Not that it’s a slow news day or anything, but the Nevada State Athletic Commission has assured the world that every fighter that was tested for the December 29th PPV event was clean. By clean, they mean of any banned substances – performance enhancers and mood enhancers alike (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Yo to MMA Weekly for digging this up:

According to the commission’s executive director Keith Kizer, “The NSAC tested Georges St. Pierre, Matt Hughes, Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva, Lyoto Machida, Sokoudjou, Rich Clementi, Melvin Guillard, Manny Gamburyan, Dean Lister, Jordan Radev, and Mark Bocek.”

Kizer also confirmed that all of the athletes on a privately held show at the Riviera Hotel & Casino on Jan. 8 were cleared of performance enhancing substances. “All the steroid tests are back for the Jan. 8 show and they were all negative.”

This ‘private event’ on the 8th certainly sounds too official to have been a bachelor party that turned into a fight night. They released the names of the fighters, which include: Jesse Forbes, Victor Moreno, Jacob McClintock, Chris Kennedy, Robert Scott, and Steve Steinbeiss. However, the NSAC may have blown their load a bit early as tests for the good stuff mood altering drugs are still up in the air for the fighters from the Riviera event.

…or fully guilty of taking half-steroids, whichever way you want to look at it. Bottom line is, the California State Athletic Commission just reduced his one-year suspension for testing positive for Nandrolone to six months. Not exactly sure what the CSAC’s reasoning behind this one is — maybe they figured that being on a little bit of ‘roids isn’t that big of a deal? Anyway, Sherk is basically getting time served; he’ll be eligible to fight again in January. If the term of his suspension goes until exactly six months from his last fight, he’ll be all-clear on 1/7, which is actually before B.J. Penn and Joe Stevenson fight for the interim title at UFC 80. So, a Sherk/Penn unification bout is still a possibility, which is wonderful because they really seem to hate each other.

By the way, Hermes Franca — Sean Sherk’s opponent at UFC 73 who also tested positive for steroids after the match — had his one-year sentence upheld at his hearing in August. Not to get all political, but has the California justice system ever given a Brazilian a fair shake?

UPDATE (From The Stephen Quadros Show via Five Ounces of Pain):
Sean Sherk isn’t letting this one slide. He still claims he is 100% innocent, and plans to continue to fight the suspension, no matter how much money or time it takes. According to his own research*, urinalysis is the worst way to test for Nandrolone. His suspension ends on January 5th, and he’s still salty about this whole “interim title” thing.

* The mental image of a labcoat-and-safety-goggles-clad Sean Sherk urinating into beakers and marking things on a clipboard is making me giggle right now.

If you’re like the vast majority of Americans, you’ve never seen an episode of Shark. And I hadn’t either until last night, when I was flipping through the ol’ digital cable and came across this description: “A fighting league’s CEO is charged with murder for pushing steroids.” Whoa, ripped from the headlines much?! I had to watch to see how this would play out.

First of all, Shark is basically a homeless-man’s Law and Order, where the show opens with a gruesome murder (inspired by a recent real-life news story), multiple people become suspects, and there’s a few twists and courtroom shockers at the end which lead to someone unexpected being nailed for the crime; a five-year-old could write this shit. So, the plot of last night’s episode: Steve Abbott, the heavyweight champion and #1 box-office attraction of the UFL (Ultimate Fighting League!) is found dead in his home from a gunshot wound to the head. James Woods and his crew first visit Abbott’s training partner Rick, who reveals that steroid use is rampant in the league. Woods makes the intellectual leap that the UFL’s CEO, Teddy Banks, forces his fighters to take steroids as a condition of their employment. They pay a visit to the league’s doctor, who folds like your mother on laundry day.