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What's next in the 'Grease-Gate' saga?

Steve Cofield

Love it or hate it, the Georges St. Pierre Vaseline controversy has delivered a spirited debate this week. MMA blogger Ariel Helwani flipped his lid on ESPNRadio1100 saying that it's sour grapes and that B.J. Penn needs to let it go. He also slammed bloggers for their coverage of Grease-Gate especially those who are acting like their job is to save the sport.

Helwani is right in some respects. The Vaseline incident is not the biggest part of the story, "greasing" is. We've now seen several fighters (B.J. Penn, Matt Hughes & Jason Miller) say pubicly that there was something fishy going on during their fights with GSP.

Mac Danzig told us today during an interview to preview Ultimate Fight Night 17, that he's heard that greasing is more widespread than you'd think saying that guys will do it hours before a fight, letting the Vaseline seep into the skin and sweating it out when the fight starts. Even more intriguing was a recent conversation with an MMA fighter who said there are certain baths (mineral oil) that a fighter can take. Once the fight starts and the fighters begin to perspire, it's almost as if he's sweating baby oil. The same fighter said that GSP isn't the only Jackson's Submission Fighting team member who's been labeled a "greaser". An opposing camp made those claims saying, "we do it, so we'd know if they were doing it."

Click below to hear Helwani explain why it's not a big story:

Fightlinker had a nice list of fights where someone was called out for allegedly greasing. Roger Huerta, Tim Sylvia, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Melvin Guillard, Forrest Griffin and Diego Sanchez (pictured) have all been publicly accused of greasing.

Who knows what the solution is? It's off the wall to think that fight organizations and state commission are going to give 20 fighters chaperones to watch their every move the 24 hours before a fight. Rest assured after all the attention Pen's GSP claims have received, fighters will not be afraid or embarrassed to call someone out during the fight if they feel too slick.