Photo by Jon Swenson/Sharkspage.com










Photo by Jon Swenson/Sharkspage.com





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Over at SBNation.com there is a series of articles going up this week focused on things that we would like to see changed over the next ten years in our respective sports.  The MMA article for the "Decade Of Change" series went up today.


The piece covers seven things I would love to see change in MMA over the next 10 years to aid in the growth of the sport.  Here is a taste from Decade Of Change: MMA's Continued Growth Relies on Several Key Alterations:



No. 1: Olympic Style Blood Tests


The truth is, steroids are a massive problem in sports.  And I don't only mean athletes actually being on them, but speculation of who is and isn't.  Look at what happened in boxing over the past few weeks.  There has never been any actual evidence tying Manny Pacquiao to steroids, only the Mayweather family deciding that he must be using to be as good as he is. That alone resulted in the fight of the century for boxing falling apart. 


Olympic style blood testing goes a long way toward at least assuaging the constant chatter of who is and who isn't using.  The last thing the sport can afford -- if it wants to continue growing -- is a massive steroid scandal.  Which, given that there have been steroid accusations made about UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem and UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, does not seem that far away.  It would be an incredibly progressive move for an American sport to have blood testing. The only real question is, are state athletic commissions ever going to become progressive enough to move to something so comprehensive?

There are six more key alterations I would like to see made to the sport in the piece.  Go give it a read.  And keep an eye out for other sports' editions of the series as they are very interesting reads.










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