Stephan Bonnar disgraced himself when, after his loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 153 in Brazil last month, he tested positive for the anabolic steroid drostanolone.

It was the second time in Bonnar's mixed martial arts career that he tested positive.

Bonnar announced his retirement Tuesday, so in a way he'll get away with cheating for a second time. The UFC released the results of its testing from the Brazil show on Friday. Bonnar failed for drostanolone and heavyweight Dave Herman tested positive for marijuana metabolites.

Marc Ratner, the UFC's vice president of regulatory affairs and the man who administered the tests at the Oct. 13 event in Rio de Janeiro, said Bonnar would be penalized despite having announced his retirement.

He was suspended for nine months and fined $5,000 in Nevada in 2006 for failing his test at UFC 62, so it's almost certain that Bonnar will get a year from Ratner, who said he follows Nevada rules. Nevada rules don't allow for a suspension of more than a year, so expect the UFC to give Bonnar the maximum punishment.

But given he's retired, a suspension is meaningless, so Bonnar got a chance to thumb his nose at the establishment as he walked away from the sport.

This, though, isn't really a Bonnar issue. He showed a lack of class and an even greater lack of character by so blatantly cheating, but that's beside the point. The real issue is what the UFC will do to stem the cheating that is clearly so rampant in this sport.

[Also: Stephan Bonnar, Dave Herman test positive for banned substances]

UFC president Dana White did not respond to requests for comment about Bonnar's positive test, though he did call it "crazy" in a one-word text message.

Ratner, the highly regarded former executive director of the Nevada commission, expressed concern at Bonnar's positive result but ultimately doesn't have the power or the authority to affect change. In the UFC, only White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta have the ability to attempt to rid performance-enhancing drugs from their sport.

"I'm concerned when people test positive," Ratner said Friday. "It's bad, no question about it. We want to get this under control and make this sport drug-free."

The real issue here is one that no one wants to talk about it, or that the faux tough guys like to mock when it's brought up. And that is, what happens when a steroid-enhanced fighter seriously injures or, worse, kills an opponent?

There hasn't been a long-term, traumatic injury or death in the UFC in its nearly 20-year history. Under current management, fighter care has increased substantially and safety measures have been taken to make the competition as safe as possible for the athletes.

That's how it should be.

The sad truth is this, however: In a combat sport, all it takes is one blow at the wrong time in the wrong place and disaster could occur.

To be sure, there is a certain segment, perhaps even a large segment, of the UFC audience that prefers to see the fighters enhanced. To those people, chemically aided fighters put on a better show.

Appeasing that crowd and turning a blind eye to steroid use would, however, essentially turn the sport into what Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) so infamously called it more than a decade ago: “human cockfighting.”

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