Former two division champion Georges St. Pierre once retired before returning at UFC 217, with one of the main factors behind the retirement being the allegedly rampant use of illegal substances by some on the UFC roster.
Even though the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has helped clean up the UFC, one thing GSP says is that fighters can still beat their tests, as long as they do a few things.
“Even now, it’s still easy to [cheat]. Even now,” St. Pierre said on The Joe Rogan Experience. “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,” St-Pierre continued. “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.”
GSP has yet to fail a drug test, pre-USADA or during the USADA era, while the majority of opponents the Canadian has fought throughout his career turned out to be clean as well.
The fighter knows he can’t just go around accusing certain fighters of using illegal substance, at least not without proper evidence first.
“It’s not what you think, it’s not what you know. It’s what you can prove. And I don’t know. I’m in the game, I’m talking to a lot of people. Between fighters, we know who does. There’s only a few handful of people who do the whole thing [in regards to supplying PEDs]. One guy could do this team, this team, this team, and one other guy can do two teams. The word goes around, man. Especially when you’re a complete fighter, the word goes around,” says GSP.
There is no word yet on when GSP could return to action, as he hasn’t been seen in the Octagon since UFC 217.
