The following is an excerpt from an article on Steve Sievert's Houston Chronicle Blog-page:
Take, for example, UFC 69 held April 7 in Houston. Despite being staged in a state where MMA is sanctioned, not one of the 18 athletes fighting that night had to undergo a pre- or post-fight drug test.
According to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the agency that oversees everything from manicures to midwives and combative sports in the Lone Star State, drug testing at UFC 69 was the responsibility of the “sanctioning body” of the event.
Well, there's just one problem with that – the UFC itself was, in essence, the sanctioning organization for the event, which put the promotion in the awkward position of having to police its own fighters and administer drug tests. It did not.
In states such as California, Florida and Nevada, the UFC leaves the administration of drug testing up to the state commissions. That didn't happen in Texas.
Sievert continued, talking about similar circumstances during UFC 70 “Nations Collide” in England:
So, this was just a Texas thing, right? It was an anomaly and testing will take place at all other UFC events, right? Ah, no.
Fighters at UFC 70 were not tested either.
“We were ordering tests, but found we had no legal means to do it,” said Ratner. “They had no commission there. There was no drug testing there.”
To read the complete article, click here.
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