Koscheck Tests GSP’s Patience
Jake Rossen Jun 9, 2010
There is an unfortunate side effect of success, and it is the very
human tendency to want to destroy what others have created. For
high-profile athletes or actors, that can mean scandals about
drugs, affairs, cheating, tantrums, or boorishness. (There’s a big
German word for taking pleasure in the misery of others, but I
don’t feel like looking it up: be my guest.) Media got more mileage
out of the Tiger Woods situation than they did from some wars.
There are few people in MMA who have created what Georges St. Pierre has since his UFC career began seven years ago. In addition to being the most dominant champion in the promotion’s history -- we exclude Anderson Silva because he appears to have cracked -- St. Pierre has polished a reputation and civility that has earned him endorsement deals from blue-chip sponsors like Gatorade and Under Armor. He is highly paid, consistently trained, and one of maybe a half-dozen MMA athletes who can make a radical difference in viewership. Naturally, some people aren’t going to be satisfied with that elevated status.
Whether it’s envy or an unfortunate method for hyping their fight,
Josh
Koscheck took the low road in an MMAJunkie.com interview
Monday, at first flirting with and eventually planting outright
accusations that St. Pierre uses performance enhancers. "From what
I've heard from other fighters in other camps, yeah, [St. Pierre]
has done steroids and HGH, possibly," he said. “I don’t know. This
is just on hearsay information I’ve gotten.”
A lawyer-friendly quote, but Koscheck messes up with the follow-through: “We've just got to pray to God that he doesn't grease up, and he gets off that juice so that we can equal things about it.”
On one level, St. Pierre should feel almost complimented by it: You are so impressive, Koscheck seems to be saying, that I cannot fathom your results without injectables. But there’s another, more sinister effect, which is the damage to St. Pierre’s reputation -- the one he’s worked for seven years to construct, the one that lends him sponsorship opportunities, and the one that should be respected until there’s credible evidence to the contrary.
Koscheck’s support seems to consist of conversations with B.J. Penn’s camp, already regarded as not exactly being a pro-GSP contingent, and maybe some campfire talk. Because no one has come forward to admit they have seen St. Pierre use steroids or sold them to him, and because St. Pierre has yet to fail a drug test, we can conclude that -- regardless of whether or not he’s actually clean -- there is zero supporting material to make that statement. It’s character assassination. (If not assassination, a solid flesh wound.)
Using an eye examination to determine someone is using steroids is absurd, and especially prevalent in athletes with low levels of body fat. (As if the demands of training wouldn’t siphon off every available ounce of non-essential body weight.) St. Pierre is built more like a racehorse than a truck and hasn’t budged from his weight class since his debut in 2002. His cardio is impressive? So is Clay Guida’s, yet no one accuses him of anything. He wins too often? So does Fedor Emelianenko. It’s a condition of being that much better than everyone else. Happens in every sport.
Steroids are an unquestionable ongoing issue in sports: too many athletes can cheat the weak test protocol for it not to be. Koscheck is advocating for “Olympic-style” drug testing, which calls for random tests and drawing blood, both of which are significantly better measures of use than pre-scheduled urine tests.
This is something MMA desperately needs, but not on a random basis. Why should Koscheck and GSP be the beneficiary of that kind of comprehensive auditing when other main event fighters are not? If blood tests are going to be implemented, it needs to be uniform and at the commission level, not because that’s how a fighter decided to create controversy. If Koscheck knows anything, it’s that he knows better.
There are few people in MMA who have created what Georges St. Pierre has since his UFC career began seven years ago. In addition to being the most dominant champion in the promotion’s history -- we exclude Anderson Silva because he appears to have cracked -- St. Pierre has polished a reputation and civility that has earned him endorsement deals from blue-chip sponsors like Gatorade and Under Armor. He is highly paid, consistently trained, and one of maybe a half-dozen MMA athletes who can make a radical difference in viewership. Naturally, some people aren’t going to be satisfied with that elevated status.
Advertisement
A lawyer-friendly quote, but Koscheck messes up with the follow-through: “We've just got to pray to God that he doesn't grease up, and he gets off that juice so that we can equal things about it.”
I somehow doubt Koscheck sat down and premeditated what amounts to
a giant plate of slander. Just the opposite: his cavalier way of
hinting St. Pierre cuts corners or expedites his recovery is a
telltale sign that he really has no idea how heavy that statement
is.
On one level, St. Pierre should feel almost complimented by it: You are so impressive, Koscheck seems to be saying, that I cannot fathom your results without injectables. But there’s another, more sinister effect, which is the damage to St. Pierre’s reputation -- the one he’s worked for seven years to construct, the one that lends him sponsorship opportunities, and the one that should be respected until there’s credible evidence to the contrary.
Koscheck’s support seems to consist of conversations with B.J. Penn’s camp, already regarded as not exactly being a pro-GSP contingent, and maybe some campfire talk. Because no one has come forward to admit they have seen St. Pierre use steroids or sold them to him, and because St. Pierre has yet to fail a drug test, we can conclude that -- regardless of whether or not he’s actually clean -- there is zero supporting material to make that statement. It’s character assassination. (If not assassination, a solid flesh wound.)
Using an eye examination to determine someone is using steroids is absurd, and especially prevalent in athletes with low levels of body fat. (As if the demands of training wouldn’t siphon off every available ounce of non-essential body weight.) St. Pierre is built more like a racehorse than a truck and hasn’t budged from his weight class since his debut in 2002. His cardio is impressive? So is Clay Guida’s, yet no one accuses him of anything. He wins too often? So does Fedor Emelianenko. It’s a condition of being that much better than everyone else. Happens in every sport.
Steroids are an unquestionable ongoing issue in sports: too many athletes can cheat the weak test protocol for it not to be. Koscheck is advocating for “Olympic-style” drug testing, which calls for random tests and drawing blood, both of which are significantly better measures of use than pre-scheduled urine tests.
This is something MMA desperately needs, but not on a random basis. Why should Koscheck and GSP be the beneficiary of that kind of comprehensive auditing when other main event fighters are not? If blood tests are going to be implemented, it needs to be uniform and at the commission level, not because that’s how a fighter decided to create controversy. If Koscheck knows anything, it’s that he knows better.
