Alistair Overeem is a beast; a physical specimen; a tall,
dark, charming Dutchman with almost 15 years of professional MMA and kickboxing
experience. During the heyday of Pride Fighting Championships (mid-2000s), a
baby-faced Overeem went to war with Chuck Liddell, Vitor Belfort, and Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua. In 2010, he won the K-1 World Grand Prix -
the biggest kickboxing tournament in the world - becoming the first
professional fighter to simultaneously hold titles in major kickboxing and MMA
organizations. He joined the UFC in late 2011 and in December of that year he
single-handedly (or, single-footedly) retired Brock Lesnar with a kick to the
liver that would disintegrate the internal organs of most normal human beings.
For the past several years, Overeem's meteoric rise in the
K-1 and MMA circuits has been dogged by his equal rise in weight and muscle
mass. While he began his career fighting at Light-Heavyweight (205lbs), in 2007
he made a concerted effort to move to Heavyweight (265lbs maximum). Since 2007, his lean, lanky 6'4 frame has
bulged to a nearly cartoonish stature. He now tips the scales at approximately
260lbs, his shoulders are as wide as a Cadillac's grille, his biceps look like
medicine balls, and his neck is a registered missing person in nine countries.
Alistair himself claims to be a clean fighter, and credits
his ridiculous growth spurt to a steady diet of hard work, diligence, and horse
meat - a high-protein, low fat delicacy in Holland. However, in a world where
high level athletes are regularly busted for using over-the-counter and
prescription steroids, human growth hormone (HGH), testosterone replacement
therapy (TRT), and other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), rumours have
plagued every one of his fights in the past three years. These rumours persist,
despite the fact that he continually passes all pre- and post-fight drug tests.
The Ball Drops
In March 2012, after a press conference promoting and
upcoming title fight between Alistair Overeem and HW Champion Junior Dos
Santos, the Nevada State Athletic Commission approached all six attending
fighters and requested a random drug test.
The supposed 'randomness' of this test was instantly questioned by MMA
fans. Overeem had agreed to submit to a random, non-licensing test, but this
was far enough removed from a major event that any fighters juicing between
fights wouldn't have begun their pre-fight flushing to get rid of any traces of
steroids and beaver hormones.
A week later, in what many agree was one of the least
surprising announcements in MMA history, the NSAC revealed the results of the
tinkle-tests: five of the six fighters passed with flying colours, their pee a
pristine specimen. The sixth, however, didn't fare so well. An average guy
walks around with a Testosterone-Epitestosterone ratio of 1:1. That's
considered normal hormone levels in an adult male. The NSAC takes into account
that professional athletes operate on another level and put an extreme level of
stress on their bodies, which from time to time can throw their hormones out of
whack; because of this, they allow a T/E limit of up to 6:1. Overeem, it turns
out, registered a testosterone level of 14:1, more than twice as high as the
allowable limit in Nevada, and 14x the average guy on the street.
Turns out Overeem not only looks like Superman: apparently,
he's got Superman in Kryptonite shackles in his basement, and regularly
harvests his blood during training camps.
That Doctor is a Silly Goose
While most MMA bloggers and keyboard warriors went into a
"Told ya so!" offensive frenzy, the two most important people
involved in the debacle - Overeem and UFC president Dana White - remained
uncharacteristically quiet. White, known
for his lack of internal censor and no-bullshit style, said he was
"pissed", but refused to go into details; Overeem, meanwhile, put his
money on silence. A smart move from a legal standpoint, but in the court of
public opinion a cloak of silence may as well be a sandwich board that reads
"Guilty, BEOTCH!" spray-painted in neon green.
On April 24th, nearly a month after the not-so-random
pre-fight test, Overeem was given an opportunity to tell his side of the story
in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Based on the live updates
provided by numerous on-hand MMA journalists, what transpired resembles a bad
SNL skit than a structured hearing.
According to Overeem, he had been nursing a nagging rib
injury. His doctor administered an anti-inflammatory injection to ease the
discomfort and lessen swelling. This is a normal, legal practice that many
fighters and athletes in general take advantage of when training. On this day,
however, the doctor must have been feeling a little mischievous because he
decided to lace the injection with testosterone - best pre-April Fools' joke
ever?
Overeem claims the doctor didn't tell him what was else was
in the syringe. A damning accusation, one might think. Not so, or at least not
when you're Dr. Hector Molina - who, it turns out is the real-life amalgamation
of Dr. Nick Riviera and Dr. Leo Spaceman.
Molina, instead of defending his professional integrity and his personal
dignity, says he "doesn't remember" if he told Overeem what was being
injected into his body. And Overeem, the naive, fresh-faced rookie that he is -
he only has 48 professional fights, afterall - didn't bother to ask if there
was anything that might affect his ability to be licensed for an upcoming
fight.
Despite the absurdity of his "Aw, shucks, how was I
supposed to know, mister?" defense, the Commission was not only lenient
with Overeem, but down right complimentary. They commended a well-argued
defense, said they respect him as a fighter and a champion, and, perhaps most
surprising, issued a 9-month suspension instead of the normal 1-year
duration.
The Fallout
In the time leading up to the April 24th hearing, the UFC
146 heavyweight main event was in limbo. Dana White seemed to be holding onto
his last thread of hope that Overeem would magically circumvent the NSAC
regulations and be licensed to fight Dos Santos despite all the supposed
'evidence' that the Dutch striker was 'jacked to the gills' (I think that's the
medical term). Just days before the
hearing, however, White either lost hope or regained rational thought because
he replaced Overeem with perennial heavyweight contender and professional
limb-snapper Frank Mir.
Notably, though not surprisingly, White hasn't cut Overeem
from the UFC altogether. There's still a dollar to be made on Overeem's name when
he's served his suspension, so White will happily keep the fighter in purgatory
until the NSAC reinstates his license. He's definitely pissed from the
perspective of a businessman: having a 6'4, well-spoken, chiseled monster with
weaponized granite in his fists is a cash cow White and the UFC wanted to milk
for years to come; more notably, however, is that he seems genuinely
disappointed and betrayed by Alistair. The UFC president is a smart cat, so he
no doubt had the same PED concerns prior to signing him in 2011. Nevertheless,
he took Overeem at his word, put pen to paper and made a mutually beneficial
deal in spite the persisting rumours.
The Road Ahead
Even though justice has been served with Overeem's
suspension, the whole situation is a zero-sum event. It's a strike against
Overeem and it calls into question just how 'clean' he's been since moving to
heavyweight. On top of that, it seems to validate MMA fans' worst fears: these
super-athletes who put their personal health on the line to entertain us on a
Saturday night are stacking the deck with illegal chemical supplements. We are
left to wonder how many fighters are legitimately clean versus who simply tests
clean or squeezes through the cracks in the system.
The failed test and subsequent suspension is not only an
inconvenience to White and a financial black hole for Overeem, it's also become
a catalyst for the larger issue of substance use and abuse in MMA. Public and
professional demand for UFC-issued random drug screening has never been louder.
While some have projected the cost of such a program would run the UFC a couple
of million per year - not unrealistic considering their global value as a brand
hovers around one billion dollars - White believes it would be financially and
logistically unfeasible. He remains open
to Olympic-style testing as implemented by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA),
but is non-committal at best.
Ironically, most have ignored the silver lining of this
whole story. Six fighters were tested following the UFC 146 press conference in
March. None of them, as far as we know, had any previous knowledge of the test.
Yet only one fighter was busted for being outside the limits of NSAC's rules
and regulations. That means five of the six main card fighters were legitimately
clean.
MMA is still a growing sport. The efforts of the UFC over
the past ten years have slowly been chipping away at long-held public
misconceptions and helped legitimize the sport on a global scale. The use of
PEDs only fights against the work of people like Dana White and Marc Ratner. In
a sport where highly trained athletes attempt to punch, kick, choke, break a
limb, or otherwise incapacitate other elite athletes, one in six is still too
many to be fighting with an unfair, unregulated advantage. But every time we
catch that one in six, we can only hope it makes it that much harder for the
next one to slip through systemic loopholes.
