HGH Positive Test: Is this a Game Changer?

ay's announcement that British Rugby player Terry Newton tested positive in November for HGH may be the biggest sports story to come out this week.

As a boxing scribe here at Bleacher Report, I have probably spent as much time writing and blogging about PED and HGH testing as I have about events in the ring for much of the last four months. It's been a hot topic since the debate that has raged over Floyd Mayweather, Jr.'s demand for Olympic style drug testing in his match with Manny Pacquiao.

One of the reasons I have never taken "Money's" demand seriously is because for all of the talk about HGH testing by the World Anti-Doping Association, they had never, ever had a positive test in any Olympics since the 2004 games in Athens. 

But now they finally caught someone. 

I will say that in all the writing I have seen on the subject, the most common thread has dealt with the huge amount of ignorance on the subject.  This ignorance pervades despite the great Web Site that WADA has with answers to almost any question you could possibly have about the subject.

WADA has long argued that the main problem with drug testing is that unless you have access to each and every athlete in a sport 24/7, 365, testing is always going to be all but useless.

That is because most HGH, as well as most designer steroids, are taken well in advance of the actual event where the athletes compete. This is known as cycling.

One of the reasons Dominican and other foreign-born players have been suspected in baseball is that even with increased testing, most of those players go home each offseason, and no one in Major League Baseball has any access to them their. 

That means that they can cycle on HGH or steroids for three or four months before they come back for spring training and they're good to go for the entire season.

Cycling is the main reason WADA has always claimed they couldn't catch anyone with their HGH testing. Because even with increased testing in most Olympic sports, they do not have access to all athletes in the periods leading up to the Olympics. Therefore, it would be easy for those athletes to cycle while they were not under the watchful eye of WADA.

But is has been easy for athletes to scoff at WADA's claim of a successful HGH test since they had never had any positive results. 

Today's news changes all of that.

The bigger question though, is what does Newton's positive test mean as we go forward? To be honest, I'm not sure it really changes anything.

I'm sure it will increase demands for more blood testing, but will that really make a difference?

Let's take a look at the long disputed Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. 

If you believe either fighter is taking PEDs, then you first have to have an international body to do the testing. Not just for one fight, but year around.

Why? Because if you leave it up to a fight-to-fight negotiation, then it will be easy for fighters to cycle before they sign the contract and the tests won't have any meaning at all.

Furthermore, if you leave it up to each fighter's contract negotiation, a fighter with more leverage could easily use those negotiations to create an unfair advantage.

I mean, imagine a top fighter using PEDs between his bouts. Then one of his possible opponents wins a big fight and he immediately challenges that fighter to a bout three or four months down the line.

If they immediately go into contract negotiations and if drug testing is part of the contract, that fighter can load up on HGH while having made sure his opponent is clean. How fair would that be?

The point is, drug testing will only work in sports if all participants are under the same rules from the same governing body at all times.

If not we're back to square one. Some people will easily be able to cheat and others will get caught.

I'm not against drug testing, but for it to work, you need well-run, competent governing bodies. If not, you're just spinning your wheels.