In feud between White and St-Pierre, rights and wrongs on both sides, with missed points all over

Let’s start with a couple equally true statements made by powerful people on opposite sides of the same issue.

First, there’s former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who said earlier this week that performance-enhancing drugs are “a big problem in the sport” of MMA, and the UFC isn’t doing as much as it could to crack down on them. That’s true.

Second, there’s UFC President Dana White, who said at Wednesday night’s post-UFC Fight Night 35 press conference that GSP only became interested in enhanced drug testing before his most recent fight with Johny Hendricks, and then it was ostensibly just to prove that he was clean after years of veiled, unsupported accusations. That’s also true.

Where it leaves us – and by us I mean, you know, this sport where people who may or may not be artificially enhanced hurt each other in a cage for money – is, well, pretty much in the same place we started, only with the possibility of more hard feelings between St-Pierre and White. I guess that’s bound to happen when you’ve got a former champ taking shots at his boss (or ex-boss, maybe, kind of), only to have that boss turn around and call those remarks “ridiculous,” right before questioning the manhood of the legendary fighter who made them.

For those of us in the media, these mini-feuds make for good copy. For the sport of MMA, they probably don’t do much at all.

Certainly it’s not going to make the UFC take the performance-enhancing drug issue any more seriously. Like White said, he thinks the UFC is doing plenty already, by which he means submitting to the authority of underfunded state athletic commissions when necessary, and doing its own fight-night testing (which you kind of have to be an idiot to get caught by, since there are never any surprises about when the test will be or what it will entail) in those commission-less wildernesses where it acts as its own regulator.

Of course, there’s also the issue of the fighters who have gotten permission to inject synthetic testosterone throughout their training camps. White would have us believe that that’s no concern because the UFC does its own monitoring of those athletes in secret. Just like, in the case of Antonio Silva, it also grants the exemptions in secret. How comforting.

Then again, let’s also not act like St-Pierre is quite the broken-hearted, disillusioned crusader he’s making himself out to be. He signed up with the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) for exactly one fight. When given the option to undergo a similar battery of enhanced tests through the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s WADA-approved program, which his opponent would have also agreed to, he declined. That is, he declined after his representatives asked a bunch of questions about what that testing program would entail.

That’s not to say that GSP’s professed concern over doping in MMA is disingenuous, but it is pretty recent. For years he contented himself with assuring us that he “never take the steroid,” and that was that. Now, because he did some extra testing before one fight – and what, didn’t get enough verbal support from the UFC, which took no action to help or hinder him? – suddenly it’s “one of the reasons” he stepped away when he did. Suddenly he wants us to believe that he was the lone voice speaking out against PEDs, the one advocating for necessary change, and it was everyone else who was “not ready to change.”

Sorry, but no. Even though I agree with the point you’re trying to make, Georges, you did choose a pretty convenient time to start making it.

On the flip side, while White is right in pointing out that it was the UFC’s own testing that busted “Bigfoot” Silva, he conveniently leaves out the fact that, once the fines are paid and suspensions are served, the UFC has no problem welcoming dopers back into the fold, and sometimes into its own hall of fame. It’s tough to make the claim that you’re tough on steroid users when you’ll also give them permission to use substances like synthetic testosterone, which minimize the consequences of their past transgressions.

Really, if there’s any point that’s been illustrated with any clarity here, it’s probably the more tangential one about the UFC’s treatment of fighters who express unpopular opinions.

“There’s one organization that has a monopoly, so the fighters don’t have much power,” St-Pierre said in his recent remarks to media in Montreal. “They can’t really talk because if one says what he thinks, he will get punished.”

White showed up to Wednesday night’s press conference prepared to battle the monopoly remarks with his same old counterpoint about the financial strength of Bellator via its majority owner Viacom (funny how Bellator isn’t to be taken seriously until White needs it to be). But the way he’s turned on GSP, that might be the strongest proof of the other part of the former champ’s claim.

Look at the way the UFC treats fighters who fall out of favor. Remember Randy Couture, who also had his manhood questioned (and his ability to corner his son in the UFC revoked) after daring to take a job with the UFC’s competitor? How about Tito Ortiz, who helped the UFC through some lean years when he was one of the only reliable draws, but who now gets mocked openly and viciously whenever his name comes up in White’s presence?

GSP may be wrong about the monopoly claim – there are alternatives to the UFC, even if they aren’t great ones, in most fighters’ eyes – but the fact that even a superstar like him can get buried by the boss in the press conference immediately following a successful title defense? That suggests he’s onto something about the UFC’s penchant for retribution.

The question is, what’s he going to do about it now? Is he going to take his money and walk away? Will he lay low for a while, then come back when tempers have cooled, trespasses have been forgiven, and the promise of another big payday for everyone trumps the hurt feelings and public jabs?

Or will he keep standing up for better treatment and a cleaner sport? Will he take these issues that he arrived at a little too late, by way of tepid half-measures, and stay with them now that he can afford – literally and figuratively – to suffer the UFC’s wrath?

That’s what we’re still waiting to find out. We know what White will do. He never backs down from a public battle. What we don’t know is whether the former champ has the same stomach for this sort of fight – or whether enough of the fans who support this sport will even care one way or the other.

For complete coverage of UFC 167, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.

(Pictured: Dana White)