UFC boss still angry with Alistair Overeem, promises to 'come down' on PED users

UFC boss still angry with Alistair Overeem, promises to 'come down' on PED users

by John Morgan on Apr 22, 2012 at 4:30 am ET
ATLANTA – Alistair Overeem (36-11 MMA, 1-0 UFC) may ultimately be granted a license to fight in Nevada, but UFC president Dana White said business demands made it impossible to wait for the results of Tuesday's Nevada State Athletic Commission meeting to decide whether or not to replace the fighter at May's UFC 146 event.

And so it is that Frank Mir (16-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC) will now face UFC champ Junior Dos Santos (14-1 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in the evening's main event.

White admits he isn't optimistic that things will go well for Overeem, and he's certainly not happy with "Demolition Man." And while Overeem's name may ultimately be cleared, White said he's going to make damn sure the sport's cheaters are eradicated sooner rather than later.

"Believe me when I tell you, we are going to [expletive] come down on this thing," White said following Saturday's UFC 145 press conference at Atlanta's Philips Arena. "We are going to do it."

Overeem, of course, was slated to face Dos Santos in the main event of UFC 146, which takes place May 26 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. However, a recent pre-fight drug test that flagged Overeem for elevated levels of testosterone left his licensing status in doubt.

White had promised to allow due process to determine the ultimate fate of the bout, but with that fight now just five weeks away, the UFC boss said there was simply no more time to wait.

"What happened with this whole thing was I've got my marketing people terrorizing me," White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "It just gets to the point where you've got to run your business. I tried to wait.

"Anybody who knows anything abut the pay-per-view business, we're already past the deadline. We've got to run with it, and I'm not feeling too optimistic (about Overeem's chances to gain licensure). … There's so much more that goes into this that you guys don't know. If we don't get into the loop on pay-per-view, you don't get in a lot of the systems. There's just so many things that we have to do to run the business."

And so Mir, who was scheduled to face Cain Velasquez, now earns a shot at regaining the title that a 2004 motorcycle accident forced him to vacate. White said he briefly considered Fabricio Werdum, who is currently scheduled to fight at UFC 147, for the role but ultimately settled on Mir.

"In my opinion, it was either Mir or Werdum, and Werdum is going to fight down in Brazil on the Brazil card, I believe," White said. "Mir was already training. Mir was already on the card, and Mir makes a lot of sense."

White declined to name Velasquez's new opponent but did confirm he'll remain on the card. And while he promised some shuffling of the evening's all-heavyweight main card, White said a Mark Hunt vs. Stefan Struve fight will remain intact.

But what about Overeem? White admitted he has no clue what the commission will ultimately decide, but he simply couldn't wait around to find out.

"I honestly don't know what they're going to do to that dude," White said. "I'm not very optimistic about it."

There are a multitude of potential outcomes, including a potential suspension should the commission decide the test results violate the terms of a conditional license granted for Overeem's 2011 clash with Brock Lesnar. If they simply deny licensure, the commission can enforce a 12-month waiting period before Overeem can apply again.

Other U.S. commissions generally follow the recommendations of the NSAC, and White insisted he will not be looking for any workaround to get Overeem back in action should things go south at the hearing.

"We would never do that," White said. "When an athletic commission, whether it's Nevada, New Jersey or whoever it is, suspends somebody or does whatever or denies a license, we follow it. We ran toward regulation. We want to be regulated."

As he did one week ago in Sweden, White refused to discuss Overeem at length. However, he did clarify the anger he expressed following this past weekend's UFC on FUEL TV 2 event was directed at Overeem and not the commission standing in the way.

"I'm still angry," White said. "I'm not angry with the commission. The commission is doing their job. That's what they do.

"I sat down in a room with Alistair, and he told me, 'They can test me anytime they want. I'm the most tested athlete in all of sports.'"

White promises PED crusade

While Overeem will still have his day in court, his test result is part of what seems to be a growing issue in the sport. White has been taken to task in recent media sessions, with some pundits charging him to take the reins of the battle against performance-enhancing drugs in the sport.

White – who points to the testing the UFC already implements when bringing new fighters to the promotion, during casting for "The Ultimate Fighter" and at overseas shows, where no commissions are in place – still believes his promotion is already outdoing what is legally required of them as a company.

"I love when the media comes after us about all the steroid and testosterone [expletive]," White said. "I'm going to say it again: We're the [expletive] platinum standard for this [expletive] in all of sports. We are. We test when we don't need to test. We do [expletive] that we don't need to do. We go above and beyond to make this thing right, and do you think – for example, look at the spot we're sitting in right now. Do you think we don't give a [expletive] about this? We don't want anybody doing this stuff. We don't want anybody using banned substances or drugs or anything else. It destroys everything – not only questions about the credibility of the sport and everything else, but it destroys big fights. Everybody was excited for this fight and wanted to see it.

"Listen, there's a lot of people who like to talk [expletive] about us. We've done a lot of great things in the last 11 years with this sport, from building it to what it is today, guys making [expletive]loads of money, health insurance for all the fighters, getting on FOX. We've done things that people said we would never, ever [expletive] do. We've accomplished all these things. Whether it's fighter safety or whatever it is, we always do the right thing, and we come out with what I think is the best way to handle it."

And while White has been ultra-resistant to calls for a UFC-run random-testing program, the UFC boss did admit there may be an opportunity for the promotion to link in some outside help in governing PED use in the sport.

"Is it me running around and testing 375 fighters all over the world?" White asked. "No. You guys can talk all the [expletive] you want about that. It's not going to happen, but we will figure something out. Maybe it's WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency)."

In the meantime, Tuesday's NSAC hearing will reveal what's next for Overeem. It's clearly not a shot at the UFC belt, at least not in May, but the situation could get more contentious depending on how things progress. White said he's not ruling out a "Reem" return to the octagon, but he's also not happy with the situation thus far.

"We'll see what happens," White said. "I don't know, man. This isn't really my deal.

"I've had situations with lots of people. It's how you [expletive] handle yourself as a man in life, in business and everything else. You sit down and tell me one thing and it's not true, or you're doing another thing, then [expletive] you."

 

Yeah he needs to be banned for stupidity.

 

yeah not even close.