Georges St-Pierre: Even now with USADA, it’s still ‘easy’ to cheat

Throughout the majority of his UFC career, Georges St-Pierre fought in an era when drug testing procedures were not as stringent as they are today. The former two-division champion pushed for stricter anti-doping policies even before taking a four-year layoff from MMA. In June 2015, with GSP still on the sidelines and unsure about his fighting future, USADA partnered up with the UFC,

St-Pierre did experience being under USADA’s watch when he made his comeback in 2017. From what he had experienced so far, he feels fighters can still find a way to get around the system if they wanted to.

“Even now, it’s still easy to [cheat],” St-Pierre told UFC analyst Joe Rogan in a recent appearance on the JRE MMA Show podcast (transcript via MMA Fighting). “Let’s say I want to have an injection of a product that will last in my body for two days or one day. So I know that particular day I cannot be tested because if I am, I’m screwed.”

“So I put on my [USADA] whereabouts [app] that I’m traveling to freakin’ Antarctica or anywhere, somewhere that is believable, and then I come back two days after.”

“That substance will stay in my body for a certain period of time, but the effect of it will last maybe a month,” he continued. “And now we’re talking about performance-enhancing drugs — people, they misunderstand this.”

Prior to his retirement in 2013, St-Pierre last fought Johnny Hendricks, where speculations flew about the latter’s possible PED use. When asked if he did think “Big Rigg” was on something illegal during their fight, St-Pierre said he was not sure. But he does have an idea who among those on the roster are.

“You asked me if I think he was taking [PEDs]. I don’t know,” St-Pierre said. “I have suspicions, but it’s not right if you don’t have the evidence to accuse someone. And even today, do I think there’s a lot of guys who take steroids and performance-enhancing drugs? Yes. And I have an idea of who, and I’m pretty — like, just for my gut feeling — 99.9 percent sure. But I don’t have the evidence.

“It’s not what you think, it’s not what you know. It’s what you can prove. And I don’t know,” he continued. “I’m in the game, I’m talking to a lot of people. Between fighters, we know who does. There’s only a few handfuls of people who do the whole thing [in regards to supplying PEDs]. One guy could do this team, this team, this team, and one other guy can do two teams.

“The word goes around, man. Especially when you’re a complete fighter, the word goes around.”

After defeating Michael Bisping at UFC 217 last November to briefly hold the UFC middleweight title, the 37-year-old St-Pierre has yet to confirm his next career move. Over the weekend, it was announced that he was supposed to be part of a four-man tournament where he faces Nate Diaz but subsequently turned it down due to the ulcerative colitis he is still dealing with.