Brock Lesnar tested positive for a banned substance by USADA right before his fight at UFC 200.
It appears obvious that Lesnar knew exactly what he was doing. He did not test positive in any of the tests that the results of which came back long enough before the fight for the fight to get canceled, in which case he wouldn’t have gotten the money for the fight. Instead, he took the banned substances for which he tested positive only when he knew that the results of the tests would come back after the fight, fought and got the money for the fight.
The question is, what should be done in order for that not to happen again in the future.
The situation now is that fighters who test positive for banned substances get suspended from fighting. This is, of course, a good solution for most fighters, for whom fighting is their main career. By suspending them from fighting, they don’t get to pursue their goal of an MMA career (at least for a while); they don’t get the opportunity to continue being involved in competition and their livelihood is taken away from them for a period of time.
But for some fighters, an MMA career is not their goal anyway. They are in for one big payday. It happened before (James Toney), and it has never been more clear than this time with Brock Lesnar.
Lesnar quit MMA 5 years ago, and despite all the buzz that emerged every time there was a rumor he is coming back, it never seemed like he really had any intention to. He is a rich superstar with a very successful WWE career, and since his retirement from MMA, it never seemed like he felt the need to prove he is still one of the top fighters in the world. Until it was announced that he will fight in UFC 200, and was exempted from the 4 months testing period obligated by USADA for any fighter coming back from retirement.
In hindsight, it is now clear that Brock Lesnar never had any intention of getting back to fighting on a regular basis. He just wanted to come out for one last time to make a boatload of cash, and disappear quickly thereafter into his familiar WWE home. So for him the suspension penalty was not a deterrent; he was not going to continue fighting after this fight anyway. What does it matter if he would get suspended or not? He just wanted to come into this fight with as much advantage as he could get.
And another question that I think should be asked is why do any fighters who test positive for banned substance receive money for their fights? They were obviously in violation of the rules. They obviously entered the fight with unfair advantage. Getting them suspended is well and good, but why does the penalty start only after the fight for which they broke the rules?
There is talk now about hastening the testing procedure so that results will come back faster and then fighters who get tested positive will get scratched from an event, even if the test was done just a few days before the fight. Of course, this is the best solution, and if this would be possible there is no doubt that this is the first thing that should be done. But it may not be possible, and even if it were possible it would still be for tests taken a few days before the fight but not for those taken one or two days before. Besides, hastening the results process might end up producing more mistakes, and we definitely don’t want that.
So, in my opinion, what should be done is that fighters who test positive should not get the money they were supposed to get for the fight. If Brock Lesnar knew he wouldn’t get the money for the fight if he tested positive, he wouldn’t have taken these banned substances. And I don’t think this is too harsh a punishment for any fighter who knowingly takes banned substances.
There is room for leeway, of course. If a fighter can prove he didn’t take these substances knowingly he might still get some or all of the show money (never the win bonus) for the fight, just as his suspension length might be different depending on various factors. As I said, I think that in Brock Lesnar’s case it’s quite obvious he was fully aware of what he was doing and he did it on purpose – so he should get the full punishment, both in the length of his suspension and in the fines he has to pay.
Mark Hunt has been vocal about the fact that he should get Brock Lesnar’s purse for the fight. I can’t see the logic there. Brock Lesnar shouldn’t get the money for that fight, yes. But it shouldn’t go to Mark Hunt instead. Hunt might be entitled to some sort of compensation for fighting a fighter who took banned substances, but it shouldn’t be in relation to the popularity of Brock Lesnar. The fact that Lesnar is popular and he signed a deal for a lot of money doesn’t mean that now that Lesnar tested positive this money or some percentage of it should go to Mark Hunt. Every fighter who fights an opponent that tests positive for banned substances should be compensated the same, and not relative to the popularity of the opponent.