What is it about Twitter that makes people say dumb things?

It's a powerful tool. I remember thinking that Twttr—as it was known back then, when dropping the vowels from your company name was the cool thing to do—seemed to be a neat method of keeping in touch with friends, planning events and maybe updating your immediate family on which kind of bacon you had for breakfast.

I never saw Twitter becoming the social monstrosity it is today. I don't think anybody did. Today, Twitter is nearly as ubiquitous as email or Facebook. Your local mom-and-pop diner is just as likely to urge you to look them up on Twitter as, say, Google or Microsoft.

But with that size and power comes the potential for misuse. And make no mistake about it: Twitter is misused. By regular everyday people, movie stars, politicians and athletes.

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Jon Hess was big. At 6'7" and more than 300 pounds, he towered over 18-year-old Vitor Belfort. Hess was as mean and ugly as he was large, a man with a reputation for dirty play.

In the early days of the UFC, when almost no technique was considered out of bounds, Hess had managed to rack up a fine for his foul tactics in his one Octagon appearance. His art was SAFTA (Scientifically Aggressive Fighting Technology of America), a self-created martial discipline that focused heavily on groin shots and eye gouges.

It was not for the faint of heart.

Hess was confident, in himself and his art. He backed up tough talk with a challenge—he wanted to take on Royce Gracie, the acknowledged king of the Octagon. When he received a challenge from "Victor Gracie" instead, Hess jumped at the opportunity. The giant was ready to write his name in history.

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Testing for marijuana in mixed martial arts has become one of the hottest subjects over the last few years.  Fighters have tested positive for the drug numerous times, but as marijuana becomes a more socially and legally accepted substance, the rules surrounding the testing processes have come under fire.

Most recently, UFC 159 fighter Pat Healy tested positive for marijuana, which changed his win over Jim Miller to a no-contest. He also lost $130,000 in bonus money he earned for Fight of the Night and Submission of the Night due to the UFC's new policy that no fighter can win post-fight bonuses if he tests positive for drugs.

While some proponents for marijuana want to see the drug not even restricted by testing bodies like state athletic commissions, at the very least most agree that the testing policies should be changed.

Even UFC vice president of regulatory affairs Marc Ratner has spoken out about changes that should be made regarding the use of marijuana in sports like MMA.

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Denver, Colorado has always been a breeding ground for mixed martial arts ever since the first UFC event was held there all the way back in 1993.

Since that time, a slew of great fighters have come out of the area, and some of the best and brightest from Denver are now forming together to create a new team under the coaching leadership of former Ultimate Fighter assistant Leister Bowling.

The new squad will be called the Elevation Fight Team and will be headed up by several UFC competitors, including Nate Marquardt, Brendan Schaub, Cat Zingano and Jared Hamman.

According to Bowling, the concept of this team is different than most in MMA because it really is about the fighters and not a single coach or gym looking to get ahead in the business.

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MMA's Great Debate Radio is back for UFC on FX 8 with a complete breakdown of the card, as well as guests including Chris Camozzi, MMA manager Malki Kawa and former Ultimate Fighter competitor Kyle Noke.

Camozzi is fighting at UFC on FX 8, and on today's show, he'll discuss the mindset that a fighter takes when accepting a bout on short notice, as well as his no-lose situation facing Souza on Saturday night.

Prominent MMA manager Malki Kawa also stops by to discuss the latest happenings with UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and where his next fight might take place.  Kawa will also update the latest with his roster of fighters, including UFC champion Benson Henderson, Carlos Condit and much more.

Former Ultimate Fighter competitor Kyle Noke also joins today's show to talk about his recent layoff due to injury and when he could be expected to return to action.  Noke will also make his case to be featured as a coach on the newest international installment of The Ultimate Fighter, which pits Team Canada against his native country of Australia.

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UFC on FX 8 isn't exactly the most anticipated fight card of the year.

It's not even the most anticipated card of May, if we're getting right down to it. That honor goes to next weekend's UFC 160 event in Las Vegas; it features a heavyweight title fight that, even if it feels eerily familiar (because we saw it one year ago, also in Las Vegas), will still appeal to the masses far more than anything we'll see this weekend on FX.

That being said, I'm excited for UFC on FX 8. More specifically, I'm excited for Vitor Belfort vs. Luke Rockhold. I noted yesterday that I had some personal misgivings about Belfort's TRT usage and TRT's place in the grand scheme of sporting events, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited about the fight itself.

Because, when it comes right down to it, Belfort vs. Rockhold is an important fight with plenty at stake for the middleweight division.

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It was a rain soaked night in Columbus, Ohio but the parking lot at the Aladdin Shrine Center on the east side of town was filled with cars.

Typically this particular venue is host to such exciting fare as the camera collector's society annual sale and auction as well as the local doll club and bear sale. On that particular Friday, however, the main hall in the Shrine Center had a cage in the center of the room, surrounded by folding chairs and a few tables.

The food and beverage area looked like a picnic set up with baskets of food along the sides of the walls with a single beer vendor pumping out suds per cup to each customer. A lone ticket vendor welcomed the guests as they gained admission or paid cash that was held in a single lock box by the entrance.

Inside the cage, amateur fighter Donny Korbel picked up a win in an amateur bout at Ultimate Victory Challenge 23. When local shock jock Jeremy Loper came in the cage to give him his post fight speech, Korbel was so excited he thanked all of his friends and family that came out to see him, as well as a special thank you to his girlfriend—who also happened to be the ring card girl that night.

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this UFC on FX card that’s coming up on Saturday night from Brazil. 

More specifically, I've been thinking about the main event. 

I find myself considering it more than I normally do, actually. I think about fight cards a lot because, well, that’s my job. But with this card, I guess I just feel that it's not the best, so I haven't looked into the overall fight listing all that much.

That will change later today when I begin to dive into heavier research for Saturday’s coverage, but not right now. Right now, I'm thinking about MMA and cheating and dirty sports.

More specifically, I’m thinking about how unfair it is that Belfort has essentially been allowed to cheat by taking testosterone replacement therapy during his fight camp.

We can pair the word “testosterone” with “replacement therapy” all we want, but the fact remains that folks who are prescribed TRT by “physicians” are each cheaters in their own way. If you legitimately need testosterone when you are in your 30s, you are either currently cheating or you have cheated in the past and damaged your body by taking copious amounts of steroids. 

It’s one or the other. You didn’t spend your entire adult life competing as a high-level professional athlete and then suddenly wake up one day with a damaged endocrine system, in sudden need of an influx of testosterone to live your daily life.

There will never be a day when I'll believe that silly, sorry excuse. You're either trying to cheat now or you cheated in the past. Simple as that. 

And, yes, I believe Belfort falls into one of those two categories. His positive test for 4-hydroxytestosterone after his PRIDE 32 bout with Dan Henderson shows us that he's been willing to subvert the system in the past and it also shows that the idea of him damaging his body through systematic steroid usage isn't all that far-fetched.

Back to my original point: I've been thinking about this, and how unfair it is that Rockhold has to compete against someone who has legally been allowed to enhance his own performance during training camp. 

He's the kid trying to do things the right way, or at least he seems to be, and he's about to enter the cage for the most important fight of his entire life. It's his UFC debut, in the main event of a televised FX card. It's not the same deal that Ronda Rousey or Gilbert Melendez got, but it's not that bad, either. 

A win could put him in contention for Anderson Silva's belt. It would cement his belief that he's already one of the best in the world and just hasn't been given a chance to prove it because, well, he was fighting in Strikeforce's depleted middleweight division instead of the UFC.

A loss would send him tumbling down the rankings.

People will talk about how he was never that good anyway and they'll surmise that the Strikeforce middleweights were always inferior to the UFC's middleweights, never mind the fact that Rockhold and Tim Kennedy and Ronaldo Souza are very good and should never have their careers judged based on what they do in their respective UFC debuts. 

And despite that, despite the importance of it all, Rockhold has to go in the cage with a fighter who is being allowed to cheat, who was given a leg up during his training camp. 

It's not fair, but Rockhold doesn't care. In several conversations with him over the past two or three months, Rockhold has told me that he doesn't care if Belfort just uses testosterone solely during training camp or if he goes into the cage juiced to the gills like a 1990s baseball slugger.

He says the end result will be the same. He's going to beat him regardless. Rockhold is the good guy, but he'll be the bad guy on Saturday night. 

He's going into Brazil—where Belfort isn't all that popular, but they'll root for him anyway because Brazilians are fiercely supportive of anything Brazilian versus American—and he's trying to win the most important fight of his life against a very good technical fighter who probably had a great training camp that was supplemented with the best kind of pick-me-up on a daily or weekly basis. 

In a just world, Rockhold would beat Belfort and prove that a clean fighter can still compete, that he can still reach the highest levels without the aid of performance-enhancing drugs. In a just world, all of the dirty fighters would lose to the clean ones. 

I don't know if that'll be the result, but it seems like the just result. And this is not to say that all fighters or the fighters who become champions are dirty, because that's not the case. Or at least I don't think it is. I have no idea of knowing for sure. 

But maybe Rockhold, who has been vocal about Belfort's TRT use, will be a catalyst for change in mixed martial arts.

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