Will Alistair Overeem Ever Matter Again?

Getting busted for performance-enhancing drugs in MMA is kind of like getting caught in a misdemeanor lie by your wife. You’re going to be despised for a while, and you’re going to pay dearly, but after enough flowers, candy, sweetness and, most importantly time, all is forgiven.  

Alistair Overeem is the latest villain in the ongoing PED melodrama.  

As you’ll recall, the gargantuan Dutchman was recently nailed for having a testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) level of 14:1, which is well above the generous 6:1 ratio allowed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. He was booted from the UFC 146 main event title fight and despised the world over. 

Overeem deserves every bit of criticism levied his way, but is he really that different from the dozens of other fighters who’ve popped hot for banned substances over the years? 

Consider this timeline of fighters who’ve failed drug tests put together by CagePotato. 

There are some interesting names on that list, even the Godfather of the UFC, Royce Gracie.  

That’s right, Royce popped hot after finally avenging his loss to Kazushi Sakuraba in 2007. He never fought in MMA again, but Gracie’s legacy is still quite intact. It was stained only momentarily. Rarely do you ever hear the word “steroid” used in the same sentence as “Royce Gracie” any longer. 

Chael Sonnen was nailed for testosterone following his loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 117, and miraculously had an even higher T/E level of 17:1. Where is he now? Training for another shot at the title. 

The list is long and distinguished, and what it indicates is that we either don’t really care much about fighters using PEDs, or we have pathetically short memories.

Overeem’s case may be a bit different, but only in the sense that he’s grown so massive in the past few years that he seemed to be dangling his usage right in front of our eyes, taunting the system to catch him—kind of like a killer who sends clues of his crimes to the police.  

Many of the fighters who’ve failed drug tests didn’t really look much different than they always have. Overeem got big, real big, and that physical transformation is how we correlate PEDs. There has long been speculation of Overeem’s misdeeds. The running joke in the MMA community is the “horsemeat diet” that allowed Overeem to transform from a lanky light heavyweight to a He-Man action figure in just a few years.  

Until failing his post-UFC 146 press conference drug test, though, it was all nothing more than conjecture.

Overeem didn’t help that speculation when he skipped out on a drug test last year, claiming he had to go to Holland to care for his sick mother. Maybe that was legit, but with all the assumption, and now the proof to back it up, there’s evidence to cast a justifiable shadow on the past few years of his career.

However, just like every other fighter who failed a drug test, Overeem will eventually be forgiven his transgressions. And if the UFC doesn’t cut Overeem, it’ll likely keep him out of the public eye for a while.

This issue will undoubtedly come up again when he fights next, but with every passing fight it will come up less and less, until—if history is any indication—it just kind of fades away.