To wrap up
my previous post, now Chael Sonnen has announced his retirement from MMA, apparently to include giving up his position as a presenter with the UCF. Which, to me, seems a bit rash. Dana has as much as said Sonnen potentially could be his successor as major domo of the UFC. I fail to see where one failed drug test would scupper that possibility, especially with Sonnen's world-class gift for self-promotion.
What makes the whole TRT issue a particularly sore spot for MMA is that there might be a medical connection between the pugilistic sports and low testosterone (more specifically, hypogonadism).
Modern medicine has determined that repeated blows to the head can cause atrophy of the brain stem, which interrupts the
HPG-loop, which results in hypogonadism/LowT. In fact, this is the organic cause of a condition that has since The Great War been termed, "Shell Shock," which previously had been regarded as a primarily psychological condition. Except now we know better, because there has been a disproportionate number of young lads returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, otherwise healthy and seemingly uninjured, but suffering from severe hypogonadism. Which presents with many of the same physical symptoms as Shell Shock. And CT scans and MRIs confirm their condition results from atrophy of the brain stem, presumably caused by too frequent exposure to concussive forces in the form of IEDs. They've been too frequently beat about the head.
There has been one clinical study (and AFAIK, only the one) that failed to find a connection between combat sports and hypogonadism, but failing to find a connection is not the same as proving that one does not exist. So while the management and promoters of sports such as prizefighting and MMA are hanging their hats on that one study, and effectively sticking their heads in the sand on the subject, the science IMHO is far from settled.
Future MMA hall-of-famer Georges St. Pierre is on hiatus from the sport, which he has stated is largely due to his dissatisfaction with UFC's failure to effectively deal with the drug cheats. I'm not sure whether this latest rash of positives is evidence he was spot-on, or if it proves UFC has put its house in order.