Kangaroo Court: Nick Diaz Suspended One Year For Marijuana, Chael Sonnen Gets To Juice

by Dr. Octagon, J.D.

Proving once again what a bunch of worthless idiots they are, the Nevada State Athletic Commission recently suspended Nick Diaz a year for marijuana use, while allowing Chael Sonnen a medical exemption for his low testosterone.

Mr. Diaz’s transgression poses no danger to his opponents, or to Diaz for that matter, as the test only proved that he had been high in the past, not during a fight. On the other hand, consider the NSAC’s punishments for mixed martial artists caught taking steroids, resulting in their opponents being locked in a cage to fight someone unnaturally strong and aggressive as a result of performance enhancers:[[MORE]]

Josh Barnett: Caught after UFC 34, Reportedly got a stern warning

Barnett again: Caught after his fight with Randy Couture, 6-month ban

Tim Sylvia: 6-month ban after UFC 44

Alistair Overeem: Caught taking steroids in the lead-up to a championship fight in APril and banned for nine months.

Chael Sonnen: "Failure to disclose a medical treatment" resulted in a six-month suspension.

Nate Marquardt: First positive test, six-month ban reduced to five months.

So basically, it’s pretty uncommon for a fighter to get a one-year suspension in Nevada for steroid use. Of course, suspending a fighter for six months is like suspending a pitcher for five games. They might fight a little later than planned, but it’s really not much of a punishment. Overeem, for example, took a nine-month break in 2010.

The only time I could find another fighter treated as harshly as Diaz by the NSAC was Thiago Silva’s submission of something other than human urine following one of his fights. I suppose you have to assume the worst when something like that goes down, but they really should have clear sentencing guidelines to make their quasi-judicial kangaroo court seem slightly more legitimate.

Which brings me to my next point: in the same hearing, the NSAC permitted Chael Sonnen a therapeutic use exemption for his twice-weekly steroid injections. They should look a little more closely at this ridiculous “low testosterone” epidemic that is apparently afflicting a record amount of muscular, elite athletes. Here’s one thing they often don’t tell you about the testosterone test. The typical testosterone to epitestosterone ratio is pretty close to 1:1. The Olympics allow a ratio of 4:1. Any more than that and they assume that you are cheating.

The NSAC allows 6:1. So the therapeutic use exemption, which fighters say gets their testosterone up to “normal levels,” actually allows them to dial their testosterone up about six times the level of the average person. Take a look at that chart below. You see that big spike? That’s around where I’m at.

Hopefully anyway, this particular study was done with athletes, who might be a little more hormonally talented than gentlemen bloggers. That’s why I can pump iron every day, take tons of vitamins, eat nothing but health food, and still have no hope of seeing my abs. Todd Duffee, on the other hand, has a hard time staying at 254 pounds of solid muscle and is permitted a therapeutic use exemption so that he can stay among the hormonal one-percenters. There are plenty of fighters I like that use Testosterone Replacement Therapy. Some of them are older guys like Dan Henderson, who have a much more plausible reason for having low testosterone. I’m only using Duffee as an example because he is so young and has always been so muscular. You can’t blame a fighter from trying to get every edge possible. They don’t show the T/E results for fighters who are below 6:1, but I would be willing to wager that the majority of fighters are coming in above average.

Chael Sonnen might just be leveling the playing field with his therapeutic use exemption, but it seems surreal to me that the same commission that suspends Nick Diaz for one year permits athletes to inject themselves with steroids to the point they would be stripped of a medal at the Olympics. To be very clear, Chael isn’t doing anything wrong, and is totally playing by the rules. He should take every advantage available to him, legally, when locked in a cage with a dangerous man like Anderson Silva. But there is a major problem with the rules, and they really need to change.

Ah yes, you might say, but you have to have a medical doctor diagnose you with low testosterone. These are learned professionals whose licenses are on the line. Yeah, well one of these dudes injected Overeem with some testosterone for knee pain and “couldn’t recall” whether or not he told him. There are doctors out there running anti-aging clinics who are sketchy as hell and make all their money prescribing roids, HGH and whatever other blood-spinning regenokine nonsense athletes use to get an edge. An M.D. alone isn’t proof of character.

So maybe the governing bodies that overseas combat sports could try treating an illegal substance that makes you freakishly strong a little differently from an illegal substance that makes you giggle. Years from now, when they look at the effects of getting punched in the head by a big man with tiny gloves, they might also wonder if those big men really needed to also have their testosterone dialed up to unnatural levels.

Diaz is stupid for testing positive, but besides being an obstinate asshole, he wasn’t doing any harm. This needs to change. At the very least, they need to knock down the allowable level to 4:1 so it’s a little harder for fighters that are doping to test clean before a fight. Something needs to change, because right now the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s official stance is that smoking pot is a greater offense for a cage fighter than juicing, and that’s just wrong.