Exclusive: UFC Veteran Sean Pierson Talks About PEDs: “I Knew People Were Doing It”

Sean Pierson hasn't been with the UFC for quite some time now, but he won four of six fights during his time with the promotion.

Pierson, who was subjected to the same drug testing policy as other UFC fighters, sat down with Showdown Joe to talk about the UFC and their drug testing.

“The end of the day, this isn’t about money, it’s about fairness in sport. UFC wasn’t about ‘lets drug test,’ because they feel they have to. It legitimizes the sport, there had to be drug testing involved. All this drug testing has done is their (UFC’s) part now to try and clean out the sport, but what they did this for is to get in front of a bigger problem, right ‘cause…I don’t know. I’m with Mark Hunt on this one and there is a big problem here, and their (UFC) skirting the issues, remember when TRT’s were allowed, they (UFC) knew exactly what was going on, elite athletes never had a problem, they were on TRT’s…like come on.”

Showdown Joe would ask Pierson if he had a sense of what was going on while he was training and fighting, or if it was, what it was?

“Again, because my goal was to make the UFC, mine wasn’t a career goal to be…it was a dream come true for me, I wanted to make it as a professional athlete and as a professional fighter. I wanted to see if I could compete on this level, I knew that my time in the spotlight was short. So I got there, I did the best I could, I knew people were doing what they were doing (illegal substances) and I’m not going to say anybody that I thought did (illegal substances), they all tested clean. (Fightful’s own Matt) Riddle might have done a little weed (laughing). I accepted that risk by signing on the dotted line, because I knew at that time that the sport was not clean, I would say the majority of us know that. Some people can deny it, but we all knew…I knew back in the IFC days. I won’t say his name because it’s not fair, but one of the fighters came up to me afterwards saying ‘I think I got off my cycle too early.’ I think I was like twenty years old and I was like ‘what?’”

Pierson last competed at UFC 161 in June 2013, where he defeated Kenny Robertson by majority decision. He since retired from the sport, and joins Showdown Joe each Wednesday for the Fightful MMA Podcast on Youtube, Itunes and Stitcher.