Enson Inoue is a legend of the Japanese MMA scene and the PRIDE FC veteran recently gave fans a look at a contract he signed with the promotion, more specifically what it said about the use of PEDs. It’s no secret of course that the use of PEDs was rampant in the early days of MMA across the world, and it is even still an issue today to a certain degree. There was a time though when the UFC was attempting to start cleaning up the sport, however successful those early efforts actually were, while PRIDE were quite obviously doing no such thing.
The often insane amounts of PEDs used by some of its competitors is actually part of the legend of PRIDE and it’s often been said that testing for them was specifically excluded in their standard contract. Now, BJJ black belt and MMA veteran Enson Inoue has dug up one of his old contracts and been able to show fans the exact section that’s often referenced:
Illegal Uses Of Narcotics:
Fighter agrees to be tested, immediately following the fight of each fighting event, to confirm the freedom from use of Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin, and Barbituates. Should the test result be positive, then, fighter shall forfeit all amounts payable under this agreement. Performance enhancing stimulants of steroid based family are specifically excluded from the scope of the test.
While the PRIDE contract obviously doesn’t outright encourage the use of PEDs, they also went to a great effort to make it clear that fighters will not be tested for them. It’s no surprise then that PRIDE often attracted fighters who wanted to take PEDs and during the promotion’s heyday, it featured some of the most incredible physical specimens that the sport has ever seen.
The information about the use of PEDs in PRIDE contracts was uploaded in a short video to the official Instagram account of Enson Inoue:
