Earlier this year, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight number one contender, Johny Hendricks, said he would be willing to undergo Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) drug testing ahead of his upcoming UFC 167 pay-per-view (PPV) main event against Georges St. Pierre, scheduled to go down on Nov. 16, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
See those comments here.
Now, just over two months ahead of his 170-pound title fight, Canadian outlet TVA Sports has rallied the troops to publicly shame "Bigg Rigg" for not following through with his (cough) "promise" to let VADA test him for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
For the moment, the American has not filled out the paperwork that would give the green light to the anti-doping agency VADA to the monitor by the confrontation with Quebec in the fall. Dr. Margaret Goodman, President of VADA, confirmed to the TVA Sports on Wednesday that Hendricks has not taken steps to become a "member" of the organization. Meanwhile, St. Pierre submits as promised doping tests. TVA Sports has witnessed Wednesday when the champion welterweight UFC had to spend an unexpected check in full workout.
Clearly, this means Hendricks is taking steroids and we must now pass judgment on him (insert eye roll here).
The former NCAA Division-1 collegiate wrestling champion, who is no stranger to stateside competition, has never failed a substance abuse test in his mixed martial arts (MMA) career (neither has GSP) and is open to whatever drug testing is required to compete at the highest level.
And he's not the only one.
UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez has also gone on record to support random drug testing (see those comments here), which in turn promotes a cleaner sport. But that doesn't mean he's running out to jump on the VADA bandwagon, probably because it's "annoying."
And for all the talk about cleaning up the sport, at the end of the day, this is a crusade by St. Pierre to exonerate himself from past accusations from fighters like B.J. Penn and Nick Diaz, who flat-out called the longtime welterweight champ a steroid user (see those comments here and here).
Which brings us back to Hendricks, who probably doesn't even remember the conversation.
Telling a radio show you would be open to voluntary examination nearly six months before you compete -- then getting called out by a Canadian media outlet for not showing up -- is not the same thing as blowing off an athletic commission's mandatory drug test a week before your fight (it's happened before).
And Hendricks still has another two weeks to register.
Whether or not he does remains to be seen, but either way, I wouldn't break out those pitchforks and torches just yet.