WEDNESDAY WAS A very significant day in the history of The Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The organisation unveiled a revamped programme for drug-testing, and given that five of our SBG Ireland athletes are currently competing in the UFC, we obviously welcomed that development.

Everyone involved in mixed martial arts needs to celebrate this time. Over the last few months it seemed to be one fighter after another being caught, which shows that they’re being properly tested now.

We had our own experience with that last year at UFC Dublin when one of our fighters, Cathal Pendred, fought a guy who ended up testing positive. Mind you, Cathal still won the fight and also received his opponent’s bonus money too.

It seems that no fighter is too big to be shown up either, even if it’s Jon Jones or Anderson Silva. It’s a great thing to see. Guys have been taking performance-enhancing drugs and that’s no surprise to people in the industry. But it is a pleasant surprise to see that everybody is being tested equally and, if they’re caught, equally vilified.

The sport had been playing catch-up a little bit, but by bringing on these guys (USADA) — which the UFC don’t have to do, they could just put their fist down and say we’re going to commission ourselves, we don’t have to listen to anybody — it shows that they’re very genuinely concerned about this and they’re making very positive steps towards fixing it. The UFC now seem to be leading the way with ever more stringent testing.

One almost amusing observation is the number of MMA journalists who have complained about the new programme, claiming that it’s a burden on the fighters and in breach of them being ‘independent contractors’ or some such nonsense.

These are the same guys who were complaining about a lack of testing a few months ago. This is how it has to be done. The athletes need to be available for testing every day of the year. Otherwise they’ll just cycle the gear.

Personally I would like to see a mandatory test, taken weekly, to chart fighters’ testosterone levels throughout the year. For some fighters this would look like a rollercoaster ride going up and down so much, but this is a great start and we at SBG are fully behind it.

If one of my own guys were to fail a test I’d be devastated. Absolutely devastated. For a start, I’d be finished coaching him. He’d be out of the gym, without a shadow of a doubt. But I’d be really hurt also.

If a fighter were to come to me in advance and say, Coach, I think I need to start taking this or I need to start taking that, then I think at least there’s something we could do about it. If the psychology of the sport is getting to a fighter, we’ve got people who can come in and remedy that too.

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A lot of times guys go on the gear so they can train two hard sessions a day, which I don’t think is necessary. You only need to do one hard session a day. I think the way we train is quite light and quite smart, so the body isn’t being broken down to the extent that a fighter feels they need to pump this gear into them to get them through that.

Some words of wisdom for Cathal Pendred in between rounds during his win over Sean Spencer. Source: Emily Harney/INPHO

But if it were to happen, I’m sure Twitter would enjoy ripping me asunder, because we’re quite vocal in our opposition to performance-enhancing drugs. But if it came to that with one of my guys, I’d certainly feel cheated.

I’m currently in Mexico with Cathal Pendred and some of the team as we get him ready for his fight against Augusto Montano next weekend at UFC 188.

The fight is taking place in Mexico City, 2,200 metres above sea level, so preparing him to compete at that altitude has been a unique and interesting experience for all of us. Luckily we’ve been able to train for six weeks at 2,700 metres so we’re fully adjusted, but you definitely feel the difference during those first few days.

I’d be very surprised if this fight lasts for more than two rounds. Cathal’s submission game is looking very sharp lately, so I’m going with a nice guillotine finish mid-second round.

After Cathal gets his fourth UFC win, we head back to Las Vegas. We have some business to take care of there on 11 July. I’ll tell you more about that next time.

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