All of the fighters that were drug tested for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s recent UFC 82 event on March 1 in Columbus, Ohio, returned negative results.
According to Bernie Profato, executive director of the Ohio Athletic Commission, Ohio took a different approach than most states and tested all ten of the winners from UFC 82 instead of testing both winner and loser in single bouts.
Profato indicated to MMAWeekly.com that reason for opting for such a tactic was because the primary goal of drug testing is to discourage use of illegal performance enhancing drugs to gain an advantage in competition. Winners of the bouts, by the mere fact that they are the winners, present a stronger case for having received a benefit from performance enhancers if they were to test positive.
Although the primary focus of the tests is on performance enhancing drugs, Profato also confirmed that recreational drugs were also part of the drug tests.
The ten winners from UFC 82 that were drug tested were Anderson Silva, Heath Herring, Chris Leben, Yushin Okami, Jon Fitch, Andrei Arlovski, Luigi Fioravanti, Josh Koscheck, Diego Sanchez, and Jorge Gurgel.
