Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker announced that fighters who in the scheduled June 18 battles at the American Airlines Center will have to undergo testing on drugs and other performance-enhancing substances.. Those who are in for the heavyweight grand prix will have extra testing before they could proceed to the second quarterfinal round of the event also slated in June.
It was not clear whether drug testing will be done before or after the fights, but it will surely be done to all the competitors. As an example, prized fighter Josh Barnett will be undergoing a pre-fight drug test before he can face Brett Rogers.
Strikeforce isn’t the only league to implement drug testing procedures. When UFC had their “UFC Fight Night 23,” the league conducted their own drug tests on their athletes. In the said event, not one competitor tested positive for drugs or other performance-enhancing substances.
This isn’t the first time that Strikeforce has imposed such testing on their athletes. It has done the same procedure last May when the “Heavy Artillery” match was presented. The additional testing is the league’s response to a call from the athletic commission that some protocols are not consistently done by the league.
Though they require random drug-testing on participants, they do not order total drug tests to be done for all competitors. That responsibility may fall on the promoters of the event.
Last May, Strikeforce’s premier athlete Alistair Overeem tested negative for any kind of drug despite the reputation given to him by his critics that he is under performance-enhancing drugs.
Tags: brett rogers drug test, josh barnett drug test, mixed martial arts, mixed martial arts drug test, MMA drug test, sports drug test, Strokeforce drug test, UFC drug test
