B.J. Penn doesn't have to worry about the wrath of a players' union. As the Ultimate Fighting Championship's interim lightweight champion, he is free of significant locker-room pressure to keep quiet and is established enough to speak freely without scolding from management.
The distinct void of outrage from active athletes about steroid use -- especially after baseball's Mitchell Report -- ends with Penn. The 29-year-old fighter finds himself fighting for a championship Saturday in Las Vegas against Sean Sherk, who was stripped of the lightweight title last year after testing positive for the steroid nandrolone.
No muzzle here.
"You're a coward if you take steroids," said Penn. "People know how to beat these tests. They get doctors, they do things to hide. . . . That's why this will be a historic night. If I can beat these people, I'll show the kids you can train clean and win these fights."
Penn also said he suspects Sherk is not the sole drug user in the 250-fighter UFC stable.
"It's hard for me, a guy who's never been using performance-enhancing drugs, who wakes up in the morning in pain from working out, to find out someone else is using. . . . ," said Penn, who is also a former UFC welterweight champion. "I'm a purist, and I'm more a fighter than an athlete. To pervert what we do with growth hormone, EPO doping or steroids, it just gets to you.
"What happened in the Old West if you were caught cheating with a couple aces up your sleeve? You'd get shot."
Sherk, 34, was stripped of his title in July after a California State Athletic Commission urine test found him positive for nandrolone, with a nanogram count of 12. That is roughly six times higher than the acceptable threshold.
"We stand by the results," said William Douglas, the commission official who helped supervise the testing procedure.
Sherk appealed, hiring attorney Howard Jacobs, who defended Floyd Landis, the cyclist who was stripped of his Tour de France victory after testing positive for synthetic testosterone.
At the commission hearing on Sherk, Jacobs questioned the test's chain of custody, and wondered if supplement contamination had occurred.
"I compete with a clear conscience and a clear head . . . I know what I did and what I didn't do, and I went above and beyond to prove myself innocent," Sherk said on the conference call with Penn. "The California commission knows I didn't do anything, either."
