THE CANADIAN PRESS
Sean (The Muscle Shark) Sherk is not happy. Since July, he has tested positive for steroids, been stripped of his UFC lightweight title and had to listen to a stream of trash-talk from current title-holder B.J. (The Prodigy) Penn.
Sherk, who has vociferously denied taking drugs, meets Penn on May 24 in Las Vegas in the main event of UFC 84, a mixed martial arts card aptly named “Ill Will.”
Penn (13-4-1) has lambasted Sherk as a drug cheat and ridiculed the idea he was innocent, pointing to Sherk’s pumped-up physique as proof. He’s also accused Sherk (35-2-1) of running scared.
And when Penn battered and bloodied Joe Stevenson to win the 155-pound title stripped from Sherk at UFC 80 in January in Newcastle, England, the Hawaiian fighter screamed “Sean Sherk, you’re dead” into the microphone as he celebrated in the cage.
The former champion appears to be storing up every slur.
“When this whole nandralone (steroid) thing came about, he took it upon himself to kick me when I was down basically,” Sherk said of the 29-year-old Penn, who can push opponents’ buttons with the best of them. “I’ve never had any issues with him in the past, and so it shows what kind of person he is basically. I don’t think he represents the sport very well, to be honest with you. He’s disrespectful, he’s got no honour and he’s got no class. That’s not what we’re trying to represent as a mixed martial arts community.
“It is what it is and I’ll do my talking come fight night.”
Don’t expect the hatchet to be buried after this grudge match. Asked if he plans to shake hands with Penn after the bout, Sherk was blunt.
“When this fight’s over I’ll probably never think of B.J. Penn again. He doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s a fight, it’s a payday, it’s an opportunity for me to get my belt back and that’s really all it is.”
The it’s only business’ facade cracks slightly elsewhere during the interview. Sherk’s rancour run deep.
“With everything that’s gone on over the course of the last 10 months, you know, with me losing the belt and the false accusations and everything like that,” Sherk told The Canadian Press. “And then you have another guy that’s holding onto the belt that he really doesn’t have any right to have, I don’t think. And he’s got a big mouth on top of that.
“So yeah it does make it personal definitely.”
The five-round fight pits the five-foot-six Sherk, who relies on his strength, cardio and wrestling skills, against the five-foot-nine Penn, who combines slick submission moves with surprising striking power.
When Penn trains properly, he is nigh unbeatable. And UFC president Dana White has forced Penn to get in shape by getting him to drop down to the 155-pound ranks from welterweight (170 pounds).
Sherk, meanwhile, has been forced to go the distance in his last three wins over Hermes Franca (who also tested positive after their UFC 73 contest), Kenny Florian and Nick Diaz.
But Sherk is durable and mighty motivated this time out. The 34-year-old Sherk, who believes you don’t lose the title until someone beats you, has the belt but not the title. He sees his hardware every day at his home in Oak Grove, Minn.
“It’s still above my fireplace and that’s where it’s going to stay until I lose, you know. If I lose this fight with B.J., then the belt comes down — until I retire. Then when I retire, it’ll come back up as a reminder of my accomplishments.”
Listening to Sherk, it’s hard not to believe him when he says he did not take steroids. He appealed his one-year suspension after UFC 73 last July and hired lawyers who argued there were errors in the chain of custody and carryover contamination in the testing machines. He says he subsequently passed a blood test and three polygraphs.
The California commission only cut his suspension to six months. And the UFC, who via White had stood by Sherk, reluctantly took his title away.
Sherk has been tested twice by the Nevada State Athletic Commission in the leadup to this fight.
“It doesn’t matter to me, the more tests for me, the better. Because now after this fight, nobody can say Sean Sherk was on steroids. Bullshit, I just got tested twice. I’m not taking nothing.”
Sherk has endured hard times before. Problems between his management and the UFC led to being frozen out of the UFC after a loss to welterweight champion Matt Hughes at UFC 42 in April 2003. Eventually other organizations shunned him as well.
Instead of fighting, Sherk found himself working on hardwood floors. Then he got a factory job with his father-in-law.
He was out of the sport for close to a year in 2005, watching from the sidelines while the sport exploded. Sherk called Monte Cox, the manager he had left so he could face Hughes (Cox managed both fighters at the time) to ask if he wanted to help him again.
Sherk was soon back in the fold with a three-fight UFC contract. He lost to his first opponent, Montreal’s Georges St. Pierre, but bounced back. Dropping to lightweight, he defeated Kenny Florian for the vacant 155-pound title at UFC 64 in October 2006.
Sherk sees his recent troubles as “just another bump in the road.”
“It’s a roller-coaster ride. There’s a lot of hills and turns and things of that nature and you just focus on what’s going on at that point in time and you try to make the best out of everything. My career’s had a lot of ups and downs and I’ve bounced back from all of it. I’ve had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And when it’s all over with, I think it’s going to make one hell of a good book.”
He used to take some 25 supplements, now he takes half that amount. To this day, he says he still doesn’t know why he tested positive for drugs.
“I know something happened somewhere and I know I wasn’t taking nandralone. So to be honest with you I just don’t know, I don’t know why that happened. And I wish I did, to make sure it didn’t happen again.”
