Gegard Mousasi has always had strong feelings for dopers in the sport of mixed martial arts, and those feelings extend to troubled UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw.
T.J. Dillashaw recently tested positive for EPO, resulting in the bantamweight to be stripped of the bantamweight championship and suspended by the United Stated Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for two years. On a general scale, Mousasi finds himself on the losing end of his grapple with understanding why fighters continue to cheat when the outcome is inevitable:
“The stupidity of fighters, knowing that they’re gonna get tested, and they still do it. It shows how desperate they are, so it’s usually a sign that people have been abusing it before, that they don’t feel they can do it without it,” Mousasi said in an interview with theScoreMMA.
Mousasi would then turn his attention to the former bantamweight champion specifically, describing his reaction to the news of Dillashaw’s positive drug test as unsurprised:
“And T.J. Dillashaw, for a long time it was suspicious that he did steroids,” Mousasi said. “And after USADA came, he still did it. They didn’t catch him the first two times, but eventually they caught him.”
Whether you are a former champion like T.J. Dillashaw or a fighter at the bottom of a card, Mousasi carries the same message to busted cheaters: you’re only getting a fraction of what is deserved:
“There’s nothing to say about those guys,” Mousasi said. “If you win a fight, you deserve it. It’s yours. But let’s say if you do steroids or you do some different things and you win it, then you steal something from the other guy. That’s the way I see it. It’s in the rules: no steroids. It’s the same as don’t go through a red light, don’t kill anybody, it’s a rule. And if they don’t follow it, they should be punished and not very lightly, I feel, a lot heavier.”
Do you believe that fighters who violate anti-doping policies are punished enough after being caught? Or do you agree with Gegard Mousasi that the punishments should be heavier?
