Back in 2015, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) partnered up the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in an attempt to crack down on the use of performance enhancing drugs. That being said, former multi-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre has come forward to claim that fighter’s can still cheat inside the system.
St-Pierre has been a longstanding voice against the use of PEDs inside the octagon for years now. Speaking with longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Georges St-Pierre revealed his thoughts on the modern era of drug testing within the UFC.
“Even now, it’s still easy to [cheat]. Even now.”
“Let’s say I want to have an injection of a product that will last in my body for two days or one day. So I know that particular day I cannot be tested, because if I am, I’m screwed. So I put on my [USADA] whereabouts [app] that I’m traveling to freakin’ Antarctica or anywhere, somewhere that is believable, and then I come back two days after. That substance will stay in my body for a certain period of time, but the effect of it will last maybe a month. And now we’re talking about performance enhancing drugs — people, they misunderstand this.
“They go, ‘Well yeah, but it still doesn’t make a difference.’ Yes, it does make the different in an athlete. And the reason, in the eighties and before, [PEDs gave] you more power, more stamina, more endurance. Now, man, with the technology, they have stuff that will change your reaction time, your confidence, your reset time. And this is a huge, huge application, man. If you play baseball or you’re fighting, you see the things coming, you have your reaction time, you’re sharper in the brain. What makes a guy athletic, it’s not his muscle. The reason why Usain Bolt ran faster — there’s many reasons why, but one of the main reasons is because his brain, his nervous system is faster.
“And if you make your nervous system better and more competent, you’re a better athlete. You’re a better fighter, you’re a better baseball player. You’re a better person, in a way. Of course that effect is limited, but there’s still the muscle memory thing that will last and it could last forever.”
