GSP (right) said he feels “sad” about what happened to Spider (left) Photo: Josh Hedges/UFC
Canadian Georges St Pierre is one of the biggest opponents of performance-enhancing drugs and the current MMA anti-doping system, a factor he even cited as one of the main motivations for leaving the sport at the end of 2013. For this reason, it was already to be expected that the Canadian was one of the biggest critics of the Brazilian Anderson Silva, caught in an anti-doping test for the use of anabolic steroids shortly after his victory over Nick Diaz at UFC 183. In an interview, GSP classified the use of illegal substances as a “biological weapon” and called for the fight between Anderson and Diaz to be canceled.
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“This fight should be cancelled, because this is cheating, it is a biological weapon you have. If I fight someone with a knife and the fight promoter or the organization knows that I have a knife, I'm bringing a knife to the fight, they can't let me fight, because I'm carrying a gun”, compared St. Pierre, in an interview with the “Canadian Press” news agency.
The former welterweight champion also said he was sad about what happened with Spider, along with someone who has already been the target of several speculations about a possible superfight, and reinforced that the doping problem in MMA is structural. “I feel very sad about Anderson Silva… I don't want to talk about an individual, I want to talk about the system. The system is the big problem in mixed martial arts. It’s something that I believe the UFC and the fighters should confront and resolve, because if you don’t resolve this now, it will only get worse and worse,” he said.
According to GSP, another major problem is the conflict of interests between the bodies that regulate the sport and the decisions they may take, given that any punishment applied may reflect on the income of the entity itself – which receives part of the proceeds from events it sanctions. “(At the Olympic Games) They have tested in surprise exams and they are carried out by a competent and independent organization (WADA), which has no financial interest in the promotion. I believe the athletic commissions are doing a much better job now than in the past because they do these surprise exams, but they still have a lot of room to improve.”
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