Boxing Peds

David A Avila of MSNBC has a report on drug testing in mixed martial arts that provides some good news and some bad for the sport.

First, the good: The two headliners for the main event in the upcoming UFC 84 show, Sean Sherk and B.J. Penn, were both administered unannounced drug tests last month, and both passed. Sherk was suspended and stripped of his lightweight title after he tested positive for steroids last year, and it would have been a huge black eye for UFC if he had failed another drug test.

But here's the bad news: California State Athletic Commission executive officer Armando Garcia says the drug problems in mixed martial arts are real, and more significant than in boxing:

"We have 120 shows in boxing and 60 in MMA and the numbers coming out are super high," said Garcia. "It's a no-brainer. There's more drug usage in MMA than boxing."

As MMA gets more mainstream, drug use within the sport will get more scrutiny. The sport needs to be prepared for that scrutiny.

When the news broke that Shane Mosley was using steroids during training for his second victory against Oscar De La Hoya, the boxer used excuse 703-B to explain how they got in his body: "I didn't know what I was taking."

The idea that a professional athlete, especially a boxer, just takes whatever someone gives him without the slightest concern about what they're ingesting has never seemed all that plausible. It wasn't believable when Marion Jones used it before finally admitting her drug use and it's no easier to believe out of Mosley's mouth.

The explanation took another hit last week when BALCO founder Victor Conte said his forthcoming book would "set the record straight" about Mosley's use of performance enhancers. Mosley, who fights Zab Judah on May 31, responded to that by suing Conte for libel and slander and claiming that Conte told him he was being given legal supplements and vitamins. Conte answered back yesterday.

"I didn't deceive him; he knew what he was taking and I told him that before he took it...I told him it was an undetectable steroid that wouldn't show up in a test."

Conte also says he's got all the doping calenders and receipts for the drugs that Mosley bought to bolster his claim. Mosley's used those receipts, he paid by check, to say that he's not stupid enough to pay for illegal drugs with personal checks. Following that logic, he is dumb enough to pay $900 for vitamins, though.

You might not realize this, but there was a heavyweight title fight Saturday night. Here's video of Jameel McCline knocking Samuel Peter down three times, once at the end of the second round and twice more in the third:

Amazingly, Peter still won the fight by unanimous decision to take the WBC heavyweight title. (In case you can't tell be looking at him, McCline isn't in great shape, and he was dying by the end of the fight.) Peter is now 29-1; McCline is 38-8-3. It's good for boxing that McCline didn't win, as he's associated with the Signature Pharmacy scandal, and the last thing boxing needs is for the media to talk about how the heavyweight champion of the world is on steroids.