We’ve been closely following the drama surrounding the drug testing for the upcoming UFC bout between Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin over the past week and now Nelson’s manager has reached out to confirm that VADA testing is out.
Mike Kogan sent me a tweet on Twitter last night, explaining the “crafty” way Carwin’s team found out of the testing.
@brentbrookhouse this @ShaneCarwin @roynelsonmma VADA thing is been boiling over with too much drama.. Roy wanted additional testing Shane and his management danced around the issue talking about everything but the answer. Today I finally got the answer from Jason that they will not do VADA but will gladly do others. Problem is others aren’t offering to sponsor the test and I’m pretty sure Jason not gonna pay. So this was crafty way to get out of blood testing. Either way he getting his ass beat by Roy so it’s whatever at this point.
So, VADA is out.
Jason Genet, Carwin’s manager, has mentioned USADA testing in the past but, as Kogan pointed out, they’re not sponsoring the testing and it’s not cheap, so that won’t be happening.
Genet also said the following to someone on Twitter yesterday
@ryanvaughan78 WADA is fine by us. Tell roy to respond.
— Ingrained Media (@IngrainedMedia) October 19, 2012
Of course, the issue is that WADA doesn’t really oversee the testing in these situations. They set up the drug testing code and provide accreditation to labs, sample takers, etc. So when boxer Nonito Donaire, who is randomly tested by VADA year round regardless of if he is in camp or not, is visited by a sample collector, it’s a WADA accredited sample-collector. Gabriel Montoya of MaxBoxing talked about Donaire’s test case of being tested year round earlier this year:
Last week, the momentum was picked up and run with by WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire, 28-1 with 18 KOs. Starting with his July 7 unification bout with IBF super bantamweight titlist Jeffrey Mathebula, 26-3-2 with 14 knockouts, Donaire will be subject to testing by VADA, year-round. That’s 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, no matter where he is in the world. If World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-approved sample collectors knock on Donaire’s door, he must give them a blood and urine sample. Per VADA’s rules, an athlete can miss sample collection once within a year period. If they miss twice, they are out of the program and the miss counts as a positive with potential sanctions, fines and bans to follow. If the subject tests positive, they are also out of the program with potential sanctions, fines and bans to follow.
Dr. Margaret Goodman talked about the labs they use in an interview with FightMedicine:
So what we needed, because this was obviously just like doing a traditional anti-doping program where you have to actually go to the fighter or where the athlete is, we had to have doping collection officers. And those officers have to be extensively trained and certified. And there’s only a few companies in the world that have these individuals or train them and have them under contract. So it was tough finding those groups that would work with a new agency. So we had to prove our worth. In other words, have the right policies in place. And the same thing went for the labs. We wanted to work with WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) accredited labs of which there are only a few in the world.
So they use sample collectors and labs that are accredited by WADA, which is the “organization” that Genet said they were fine with.
I understand that the article that was ran on VADA’s site that took a shot at Carwin being on The Ultimate Fighter to “teach fighters how to dope” (paraphrasing) is not a good thing. But I refuse to write off the organization forever because an intern posted a stupid article on a website. And I also refuse to think that it’s somehow proof that, despite using the exact people for the sample collection and testing that Genet said they were okay with, somehow VADA would alter the results they were given. Do you think WADA wouldn’t publicly end VADA’s world if they were altering test results they got back from the labs because of some personal vendeta?
If Genet wants to step up and pay for USADA testing, I’d consider him being serious about this all. But right now, I have to agree with Kogan. Lord knows I’ve never been a Roy Nelson fan, and what Nelson did by telling people they had agreed to VADA testing was complete crap. But it sure does look like Genet has found a nice excuse to not give fans the cleanest fight possible.
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