Middleweight contenders Tim Kennedy and Michael Bisping will settle their score in the Octagon in a five-round main event at The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia. In the meantime, they'll be trash-talking one another with blogs on Yahoo Sports.
My April 16 opponent, Michael Bisping, and I don't see eye to eye. I think that is obvious. Even if we have a great back-and-forth fight, I don't think we will shake hands and be best bros. I don't think there will be a "Top Gun" Maverick/Ice Man moment afterwards. He's a jerk and I don't like him.
However, we both share the same feelings about testosterone replacement therapy, which was recently banned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. But he hates it because he lost to three guys who were medically prescribed to use it – Dan Henderson, Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort. I hate it because I hate cheats.
Even though I'm not actively fighting in the U.S. Army following my years of service that began in 2004, I am still part of the military guard and am tested frequently for different steroids. So it's not the UFC or any athletic commission that tests me for drug use, it's the military.
I've been a professional athlete for 13 years. I've been with almost every single fight camp that exists. I have friends that fight. I have friends that fight with different fight camps, and I'm not an idiot when I talk about drugs in MMA. That's just how it is.
In our sport, you have this tiny window to make the earning potential of possibly your entire life, and in that window you have do everything you can to get as many wins in the most exciting fashion that you can to increase that earning potential.
The ones who use performance-enhancing drugs are trying to make easy money. They want it all but they don't want the pain that goes along with earning it the right way. They want the watches, the big-boobed blondes hanging out with them at parties, but they don't want to make the sacrifices to get better, so they just grab a needle, dip it in blood and go for a workout.
I have been approached countless times about doing it, but I've never done it because I have character. I'm not a cheat.
I think doing performance-enhancing drugs goes against everything about what this sport is founded on and that's martial arts – being disciplined, focused, and responsible. Those are the reasons I'm a martial artist.
Now it's just about being a fighter and being the best in your division, which is good. That's what I want to be, but I want to do it the right way. That's what this sport was founded on.
I don't do drugs out of respect for the sport, respect for myself and my family. The way I was raised with morals or ethics or justice, doing drugs goes against all of it.
Don't get me wrong. I would love the benefits that go along with using performance-enhancing drugs. I would love to train five times a day without hurting. But I'm not going to sacrifice who I am for it.
One in 500 men need TRT naturally and it's identified in pre-pubescence. They had it their whole entire life, even going into puberty. So these grown men that in their late 20s or early 30s that are saying they need testosterone, they are almost assuredly lying.
The fighters who have used TRT and now can't use it because of new rules in some jurisdictions, combined with the UFC supporting the ban implemented by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, are probably going to use other performance-enhancing drugs through different channels because they are weak. They lack character, lack morals. They want the easy way. They are so used to performing, so used to winning, and anything else seems just alien to them.
I am very outspoken on the topic, and to an extent, I'm glad Michael Bisping is, too. He has a big media presence in the sport and when he speaks, a lot of people hear about it. But I can't help but think he is only against TRT because of those losses to fighters who were on TRT.
