Joe Rogan: ‘There’s a steroid epidemic in the UFC’

“The UFC and MMA in general is a steroid epidemic.They’ve started this really stringent testing, and everybody is getting popped. They’re just getting popped left and right. It’s one of the things fighters have been saying for a long time, that everyone is on steroids, or a huge percentage. The number (is) 50, 60 (percent), whatever it is.”

“Fighters will sometimes train three times a day. Maybe they’ll run, do sprints in the morning, and then they’ll do some kind of strength and conditioning in the afternoon. Then they’ll do wrestling or jiu-jitsu at night. Then they’ll vary. The next day they might do kickboxing in the morning and running in the afternoon, then weight lifting at night. But you’re talking about working out three times in a day because you have all these different skills you have to work on.

“You have to work on your wrestling, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu. There’s not enough time in the day, and there’s not enough time to recover. So that’s when comes in Dr. Feelgood. He comes along, and bang.”

“Anderson was coming back from an injury, and the way I understand it, he tested positive for metabolites. It was leaving his system, a very trace amount. If that was the case, it could be that he got on some steroids to recover quicker. Because what steroids do, is they allow you to recover quicker.

“So if he’s 39 years old and he breaks his leg, you’re looking at a long-ass recovery period. Or you take steroids and you recover in nine months instead of 15 months or fill in the blank. That could be what’s going on, but the reality is it’s illegal. If it takes you 15 months, the excuse cannot be, ‘I’m going to take some illegal drugs so I heal quicker.’ No, you’re never allowed to take steroids.”

“The reality is, especially with this whole steroid epidemic, one thing we have to realize is the use of steroids is less than 100 years old. There’s always been something people have taken, but the actual use of anabolic steroids in human beings is relatively recent in human history. As time goes on, they’re going to create more powerful, crazy sh-t, and it’s going to get to the point where you’re going to test negative because it’s not in your system anymore, but your body will forever change.”