Josh Koscheck file photo: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com
“From what I’ve heard from other fighters in other camps, yeah, [Georges St. Pierre] has done steroids and HGH, possibly. I don’t know. This is just on hearsay information that I’ve gotten. B.J. Penn and his camp gave me a little phone call. They were saying, ‘Yeah, he’s on steroids. He’s this; he’s that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, there’s a possibility.’ The guy is pretty ripped all year round. I think Olympic-style testing would be great for our sport. At least you do it a couple times out from the fight. I think it will be a great idea.” -- Josh Koscheck to MMAJunkie.com, remarks he later retracted
“I want it to happen. I don’t know who uses [performance-enhancing drugs]. I have no idea, and I’m not going to say any names, but I want it to happen soon. What’s happening now, it’s going to be bad. It’s going to be like a certain other sport. I don’t want to say the name of the sport, but it’s not going to be the best fighter that wins the fight.” -- Georges St. Pierre to MMAJunkie.com
“I think that’s what an athletic commission is for. The athletic commissions have been around for a long time. When fighters start talking about other guys being drug tested? Shut up. Worry about you.” -- UFC President Dana White to the Las Vegas Review-Journal
“You know, back when I was there, it seemed adequate what we were doing and truthfully it just wasn’t … you don’t have to be slapped in the face to recognize that you’re not catching enough athletes and you’re not creating a deterrent for them. They’re slipping by. It’s unfair fights … it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the testing needs to be changed. The question is which direction do you go and when.” -- Dr. Margaret Goodman, former chairperson of the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s medical advisory board, on state drug testing procedures to the No Holds Barred podcast, as transcribed by FightOpinion.com
“Yeah, I needed to change it for sure. I spent much too much time in the offseason going out and having a little too much fun and not getting better and not letting my body heal. I spent most of the camps getting in shape, losing weight and not training and not working on things I should be working on.” -- UFC hall of famer Chuck Liddell in advance of his June 12 bout
“I was mentally cashed. When you start coming into the gym, and the moment you walk in you look at the clock and count down the minutes to the time that you leave, that’s never a good thing.” -- Rich Franklin on a UFC 115 conference call discussing training before his loss to Vitor Belfort
“In Japan, it just wasn’t like this. In Japan, I just came, the driver picked me up at the airport. I always stayed in the same hotel. I was the only fighter there. Here, we are meeting our opponents, [other] fighters. People don’t really know the level of disruption. There are parties during the night that wake you up. There are maybe three to four fighters, plus their cornermen, and they’re doing madness during the night. That makes you nervous. I didn’t have any of that before in Japan. I had my peace. I just don’t like it.” -- Mirko Filipovic during UFC 115 media availability
“In my estimation, the UFC is already quite complete in terms of promotion and their roster of fighters. In Japan, however, whether Dream or Sengoku, MMA is still developing. We still need to raise greater public awareness of the sport and of the fighters themselves. A lot of people in Japan still don’t know what MMA is and why fighters do the things they do in the ring. We’re still at a stage where we need to explain things to everyone.” -- Tsuyoshi Kosaka to Sherdog.com
“I am particularly proud of my judges, all of whom do have a history of judging bouts, primarily amateur or pro-am. All of them are former fighters. This is the first UFC where the fighters will be judged by their peers. The most important part of judging is understanding what you are looking at, and these men understand the sport very well.” -- Vancouver Athletic Commission Chairman Mirko Mladenovic to Sherdog.com on UFC 115 judging assignments
“Before the fight, he came to me: ‘Hey, how you doing?’ And then after, it looks, like, fake for me, you know? I don’t like fake people, and for me, he was just fake; he’s a fake humble guy. After, he’s, like, he starts talking s--t. Or he’s bipolar, I don’t know.” -- Demian Maia to Inside MMA on Anderson Silva
“I was very frustrated because they think that we are making excuses to go live in the U.S. You need to have the plane tickets to go and come back already bought. You need to show that you have a secure job, a place to live … the process is very difficult, and sometimes they don’t even look at your paperwork before denying you.” -- Top-ranked flyweight Jussier da Silva of Brazil to Sherdog.com on the difficulty of getting fights in the United States
* * *
The Week Ahead
All the fallout from UFC 115, and Strikeforce stages a Wednesday event headlined by Robbie Lawler vs. Renato Sobral in conjunction with the EA video game convention in Los Angeles. Plus, Ben Askren and Dan Hornbuckle tangle to decide Bellator’s 2010 welterweight tournament winner.