bigg jay

GSP is happy with the direction they are going but , like me, wants to hear more specifics. It'll be interesting to see if these changes will be enough to get him back in the cage. From his twitter account:

It sounds like a good start but it's short on details (at least for now until they get their deals in place). I wasn't surprised to to see how little they spent on drug testing over the last 2 years (500k) compared to what they are now committing to pay (several million, but no cap & willing to spend whatever it takes according to Lorenzo). There are a lot of fighters who will either retire or be noticeably less successful in the next little while. The part of about key commissions making things uniform is pretty funny if you've spent any time dealing with them. This enhanced drug testing has created quite a bit of talk about this possibly pushing fighters towards being considered employees rather than independent contractors. Year round testing, "uniforms", health insurance and other things are starting to add up.

Business-wise it makes sense, they want to protect their cash cow's. It's just very hypocritical and something you don't generally see in other professional sports (at least from the league). They want to be seen a a major league sport but sometimes they do very bush league things.

The UFC plays favorites, no question about it. They will cut a lower level guy over a tweet, but a star like Jones gets a slap on the wrist. And it's not as though this is Jones 1st controversy either, he just had the press conference brawl with Cormier (there may still be fallout from that as Jones flat out lied to the commission at a hearing) and he had a DUI in 2012.

The tests are always done by a commission but Silva's test for sure was paid for by the UFC directly. The UFC has & does fund drug testing (especially out of competition testing) but from my understanding, they do not pay the labs directly. The policy in Manitoba is for the commission, not the lab, to bill the promoter (UFC 161 was/is the only time drug testing has been done here if I'm not mistaken).

Not true. The out of competition tests were done by the Nevada commission not the ufc.

I hope somebody tweeted that to Cornish & Federkeil.

There has always been PED users (even going back to the Royce Gracie days - Ken Shamrock has admitted past TRT use & he fought on UFC 1) but it's definitely increased as the sport has grown. It's gotten to the point though where clean guys are contemplating walking away. They've had 13 guys in the last 12 months fail tests. The UFC isn't helping things either, they recently cancelled plans to randomly test each fighter throughout the year (if you believe the rumors, it's because they did a test run & 70% of the samples came back positive for banned substances). They're holding a press conference next week to address the issue, so we'll see how serious they are about cleaning it up.

Thanks Rich! To expand on my earlier post, MMA is having fighters failing drug tests on almost a weekly basis right now (2 of them being major stars in Jon Jones & Anderson Silva). They had arguably their biggest star (GSP) completely walk away from the sport because of the rampant PED use. Those are facts. Another fact is that for the athletes, the promotions, and the commissions (more specifically Nevada because of their laws) it's better financially to ignore the drug tests until after the fights are done. For example, if they had released the test results for the last PPV in a timely manner, it would have forced either the cancellation/rescheduling of the main event or even the entire card (the UFC has cancelled an entire card due to a main event change before). The laws in Nevada state that they could be on the hook for refunds if they don't deliver the card as advertised so if they lost the Silva/Diaz fight, they could have been shelling out a lot of cash, not to mention the huge loss in PPV buys. The NSAC also loses out, as they make 6% of the total gate for the event (for the SIlva/Diaz event, their cut was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars). Obviously the fighters lose out too since they (for the most part), don't get paid if they don't get to fight. Silva's failed drug test was done weeks before the event but conveniently did not receive the result until days after the event - they could have had them in about a week, if they so chose. Given the financial implications I just mentioned, is it a coincidence that they don't get the results until after the event?

Or it could be that the culture of the NHL is different and therefor they have less issues than other leagues. I think thats the answer. All those other leagues and organizations have a brand to protect too. I wouldnt say the UFC is in crises mode. They have problems but it's not a crises. They will get it sorted out. I remember the HUGE drug scandal in WWE a few years ago (that ended up with Vince mcMahon on federal trial) but they worked it out...more or less. The mods may want to split this topic from the Jets/NHL talk. It's not in crisis mode yet, it's knocking on the door for the UFC and only because they are doing their best to bury it. There's a lot going on with PED's in MMA (some confirmed and some stuff is strongly hinted at or rumored). There's so much financial motivation (for all parties involved) to sweep this under the rug, it's not even funny.

Nice picture you got there Jacquie. LOL It's all part of having being an advanced member!

Looks like Spencer Watt is heading to Hamilton.

I'll hold out until they start clearing out the track suits!

Re-signed with Hamilton.

"...no, I mean they're BIIIIG...I mean, I look at them and go 'oh you've really let yourself go'..." One of my all-time favorite stand-up acts of all time!

Just threw it on the computer to listen for a few minutes at work and heard a couple of good tunes back to back. Seems its going to be an eclectic mix of classic rock and top 40-ish "rock". I wonder if it will cyphon some people away from their own BOB station (maybe a little bit of cross-over). I was intrigued by the potential for a country battle with QX. I like country but moreso for the "hits". But like many here, I'm a TSN 1290 listener in the car and when they have something crappy on like Jim Rome, I flip to CJOB. Not often I listen to music and when I do I flip around constantly for a song I like. I'm pretty much the same. I don't listen to music much on the radio so the format they choose doesn't matter much, I'll flip until I find something I like or plug my phone into the the aux cord & play my own music.

I wonder who will be working the Bomber games now? The last 4 people I can remember (Wheeler, Philly, TJ Connors & Vicki Shae) all worked at Power97 but none of them are there anymore. Vicki is the only one who still works for Corus (she's moving to 99.1 Fresh FM).

The Free Press has confirmed 97 is going with a classic rock format.

Doug Brown tweeted that Watson asked to be traded so the cost/benefit may not have been the main reason he's gone (I'm sure it played a part in it though).

Rids had him as the 2nd rated receiver in last years draft (behind Devon Bailey). His report said he won't run away from anyone at the CFL level but will be hard for LB's to handle in coverage and he makes tough catches in tight quarters.

Read the Lawless tweet a few posts up. Lawless just listed the finalists, not a full list of applicants. JBR said nobody with CFL experience was interested but who's to say there wasn't and they just didn't make the final cut?

Correct. It's called parliamentary privilege.

It was the draft we missed out on. I would say they owe us an All-Star game one year as well though since we are one of only 3 teams to not host one yet (Coyotes & Ducks are the others).

This is why I'm ok with pushing it back a year. Although I would have sucked it up and paid for both, a lot of people couldn't or wouldn't.

Not if his injury keeps him out again. He didn't play this week due to a back injury (not that he gets much time on the field when he's healthy anyway).