Leadership Coaching BlogLeadership Rules: Is there an Unfair Advantage in MMA?

Anderson Silva & Chael Sonnen will meet in the center of the octagon to compete in hand-to-hand combat to declare a winner of their highly anticipated rematch.

There are no weapons used in MMA. Each fighter has to meet a specific weight to compete with determined fairness.

But, is the fight really fair?

Do the two competitors have equal advantages?

Any created advantage in the octagon can heavily tip the tides of the fight and put the opponent’s safety in jeopardy. Leadership has for decades seen to the safety of prize fighters, and sports in general, has encountered corruption involving illegal drugs for quite some time.

Are the athletes to blame or are leadership councils allowing unfair advantages to occur in order to boost ratings, attraction, fan base, and revenue?

Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) is used as an aid to increase the decreasing levels of testosterone in older athletes. As we age, our youth declines and our performance is reduced. Addressing this natural decline with testosterone aids such as TRT reestablishes youth in the aging fighter.

Is this an unfair advantage?

The natural advantage of age is experience.

The natural advantage of youth is energy and vigor.

There is no way to provide experience synthetically to a younger fighter. Providing anti-aging benefits to older fighters gives them an unfair advantage over their inexperienced counterpart.

From a competitor’s point of view, addressing the performance gap created by declining testosterone levels will increase performance, boost popularity because of success in the octagon, and increase financial income. Anyone in that position with that much to gain will 99 times out of 100 choose TRT. TRT is allowed in MMA and there is no reason for an aging fighter not to replenish their system in order to compete at a higher level.

Athletes are not to blame for making the allowed choice of addressing their weaknesses.

Leadership needs to acknowledge the disadvantages that are presented to the younger fighter and make a difficult choice concerning which are more important:

The immediate gain in popularity from continuing the legacy of older fighters by way of performance enhancements or allowing MMA to apply Olympic style testing that will allow natural competition and decrease the unfair advantages seen by younger fighters when entering the octagon against synthetically enhanced veterans.

Keith Lawrence Miller, MA – Executive Career Coach

Board Certified Coach, Columbia Alumni Career Coach, ICF Certified & Credentialed Coach, MA Organizational Psychology from Columbia University

Elite Pro Coach | Ivy League Resumes – (855) MY.PRO.COACH – www.EliteProCoach.com

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