UFC's Matt Serra Joins PED Talk, Says Most Fighters Use

[WrestlingSmarks News]

Just a few days after Krzysztof Soszynski came out with the very strong statement that he believed that 85 to 95 percent of fighters are on some sort of performance enhancing drug, another UFC fighter is chiming in. PEDs in MMA have turned into an issue that just won't go away and when one fighter talks about them, it seems there are always others who are spurred on to talk about it as well. This time it was former UFC welterweight champ Matt Serra jumping into the fray in a recent TapouT Radio interview (via MMA Weekly):

"It's wrong man, it's really wrong. Let me tell you something. I got to the title without doing anything. I didn't use anything," Serra commented. "Me and BJ Penn are in that small percentage that don't do (expletive). There's a lot of guys that are considered legends, and they're doing the GH and doing this and that, and it's obvious, it's freaking obvious."

...

"It's one thing if you're fighting for an hour, but you got 15 minutes in there. There's certain teams out there that look like they got a freaking chemist assigned to them," said Serra. "It's not that I want to judge anybody, but hey man, I'm fighting these people. Next thing you know you're in there fighting a guy with unlimited energy that looks like a He-Man figure. I don't give a (expletive) if it's happening in baseball, but when a guy can kick your head off, someone can get hurt. There's a chance for serious bodily harm."

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The KSos statement had some people upset that he was "making up statistics" but he was giving the number that he believed to be using. There's a difference between giving a percentage you believe, based on close personal experience and talking to peers in the sport, and making up statistics. Similarly, Serra is likely basing what he is saying on personal experience, and it's more than simply that other guys are "bigger than he is."

Given the kind of stuff that you hear when you are around the sport enough, it's hard to put up much of an argument that the percentage of guys using isn't very high. It's just a reality of the game. These guys aren't heroes, they're professional athletes trying to compete for a very limited number of spots where someone can make a livable income. There's no reason to assume they'd think in terms different than athletes from any other sport.