No fighter wants too put up with boos in the ring, or booze for that matter.
UFC champion Ronda Rousey has spoken out again against the five-year ban handed down to her friend Nick Diaz by the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Diaz received the ban after testing positive for marijuana in a drug test after UFC 183, but many in the sport – including Rousey – believe that the ban is excessive and unnecessary.
At 32-years-old, a five-year ban would effectively end Diaz’s career, and Rousey has likened it to not paying parking ticket: “Say you got a parking ticket, and you didn’t pay for it, and then you got another parking ticket and you didn’t pay for it… no matter how many parking tickets, no matter how long you don’t pay for it, you never deserve life in prison.
“They’re pretty much trying to keep him from fighting ever again – five years is really the rest of the shelf life that he has. I think the punishment was cruel, and people know that.”
The women’s champ then asked why athletes were even being tested for recreational drugs, but not alcohol:
“I don’t think they should be testing for weed at all. It has nothing to do with sports.
“They keep saying, ‘oh it’s for the safety of the fighters, we make sure the fighters don’t get in there high and get injured’. Really? Then why are you not testing us, making sure we’re not drunk? Why are they testing one thing and not the other? You should test for performance enhancing drugs only.”
What do you think? Should we be testing athletes for drugs that have no effect on performance? Or should we just do away with drug testing altogether and let athletes take whatever they like to give us the best competitions possible?
