What do you get when you cross an MMA promotion on its last legs with a heavyweight fighter who has a history of testing positive for performance enhancers and a state athletic commission rumored to play fast and loose with its testing policy?
Answer: Very short straws for everyone involved.
The Affliction brand’s bid to go out of the fight promoting business with a bang fizzled this week after the California State Athletic Commission refused to license Josh Barnett for his scheduled Aug. 1 bout with Fedor Emelianenko, due to Barnett reportedly testing positive for a steroid.
The T-shirt-company-turned-failing-MMA-franchise was mortgaging what little professional life it had left on the blockbuster main event of Barnett vs. Emelianenko for its upcoming “Trilogy” pay-per-view. Now it seems Affliction will slink off without much fanfare, since most observers expect “Trilogy” to be its final stab at promoting fights.
Unless Barnett is somehow cleared during the next week or so, fans will also be robbed of their latest chance to see Emelianenko fight a Top 10 heavyweight. That’s something the consensus best fighter in the world has done precious little of during the last couple of years.
Vitor Belfort has purportedly signed on to replace Barnett against “The Last Emperor,” on short notice, but that matchup is unremarkable by contrast. Once the UFC light heavyweight champion, Belfort now fights primarily as a middleweight and had been preparing for a 185-pound fight against Jorge Santiago at the same event.
Belfort is a decent fighter who is currently riding a four-fight win-streak, but most MMA aficionados have already grown tired of seeing Emelianenko take on middleweights … and exhibitions against lightweights … and unskilled giants … and sambo tournaments or whatever else he spends most of his time doing these days.
Barnett was set to be Fedor’s biggest test since he defeated Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic in 2005 and fans were hungry to see it. Now that opportunity has been ruined by a CSAC report claiming Barnett turned up dirty in his prefight drug tests for an almost unpronounceable string of letters and numbers called 2a-methyl-5a-androstan-3a-ol-17-one. Whatever that is.
It’s the second time Barnett has tested positive. The first came in 2001, when he was UFC heavyweight champion. For the record, he continues to deny both violations and has already publicly said that he will clear his name in this latest scandal. For what it’s worth, California’s drug testing has appeared shady at times in the past.
Whatever legal action follows, Barnett forfeits a major chance to reestablish himself in the minds of American fans if he is not allowed to compete on Aug. 1. A win or even a good showing against Emelianenko could’ve revitalized Barnett in the states. After spending most of his career fighting in Japan, he could’ve leveraged this fight into a deal with Strikeforce or perhaps even the UFC. Now that chance is gone. Now, some pundits are questioning whether or not Barnett will have any career left at all when the dust settles from this thing.
If a silver lining can be found in this unmitigated disaster, it could be that Emelianenko will be a free agent again after Aug. 1, no matter who he fights. That could conceivably open the door for the Russian fighter to finally make his way to the UFC, though President Dana White did not seem optimistic during a radio interview earlier this week.
“You’re dealing with a whole different culture there,” White said of trying to negotiate with Emelianenko’s management team. He added that he still has never spoken personally with the fighter.
Hopefully, in the wake of this catastrophe a deal can be struck between the notoriously prickly UFC and Emelianenko’s notoriously difficult managers. Until then, it’s a lose-lose situation for everybody.
Chad Dundas writes a weekly MMA column for Crave Online. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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