Notes: Koscheck returns; CSAC changes

If you bring up to Josh Koscheck that he’s likely to be in an unusual setting Wednesday night, he jokes, "You mean for the first time I’m going to be cheered?"

Well, that and the fact the show will be in front of an almost exclusively all-military crowd.

It’s not that Koscheck, the Ultimate Fighting Championships resident "heel" since spraying a hose on a sleeping Chris Leben during season one of the Ultimate Fighter, has never been cheered. But it usually takes something spectacular for him to get that reaction, like the flying head kick he threw that knocked out local favorite Dustin Hazelett in Columbus in March.

Koscheck will be fighting Yoshiyuki Yoshida in the main event of a Spike TV special called "Fight for the Troops." The show, held in Fayetteville, N.C., just outside Fort Bragg, is being used to push donations to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, to help build an advanced facility for research and treatment of military personnel and veterans who have suffered traumatic brain injuries.

"I’m like the hometown guy," said Koscheck. "They are the real heroes and the real warriors battling for our freedom."

Koscheck feels he’s been the object of "haters" since he started, because fans were critical of him early in his career for using only wrestling skills, even though he won nine of his first ten fights.

Fans and even other fighters he felt criticized the guys on the first season of Ultimate Fighter as TV reality stars and not real fighters.

"I was trying to win and I knew nothing but wrestling when I started," he said. "The Ultimate Fighter changed the sport and you can’t argue that it wasn’t the best thing ever for MMA," said Koscheck. "Look at the first season. Almost everyone made it. You’ve got the light heavyweight champion (Forrest Griffin). Kenny Florian is about to get a title shot and he’s one of the toughest guys in the world. Diego Sanchez is a top five fighter. Chris Leben is one punch away from being able to beat anyone."

His opponent, Yoshida, was a nationally ranked judoka in Japan in his youth. A likeable guy, almost always laughing and joking, he was a late starter in MMA as his debut match was at the age of 30.

He was working as a physical education teacher, but he mentally battled a gnawing question of whether he had achieved all he could in sports. In high school, he was part of a judo powerhouse program that won a national championship at Setagayua Gakvin High School.

As a teenager with that program, he often trained with future judo legends like Hidehiko Yoshida and Makoto Takimoto, who both went on to win gold medals and become heavily publicized MMA fighters.

But in going to Gakugeicai University, a mostly art college, he wasn’t in a high-caliber college program, and while he went to judo nationals, he never won a title.

"MMA was already well accepted in Japan because of PRIDE (the leading MMA organization in the country at that time)," said Yoshida, through interpreter Shu Hirata, noting it didn’t have the negative stigma that it still had at that point in the U.S. "I wanted to go back to competition, but at 27 (when he first made the decision), I had to do a professional sport because there was no money in continuing to compete judo."

In that sense, he and Koscheck have similarities, because it was the lack of any financial opportunity in continuing as an amatuer wrestler that caused Koscheck to switch to MMA.

Yoshida kept his training secret from his parents and all of his friends, and didn’t even let them know he was doing it until after he had his first match nearly four years ago.

Now 10-2, although his two losses were in his first three matches, Yoshida was discovered by UFC officials after winning a welterweight tournament in 2007 with the Cage Force promotion. Because of the cage, as most groups in Japan use a ring, it was the Japanese promotion that has the most similarities to UFC.

"I chose UFC over DREAM or Sengoku because UFC has the best 170-pound fighters in the world," he said, noting that the only way to prove himself to be the best in the sport would be to test himself against Georges St. Pierre. "I fully believe he’s a notch above everyone else in the world."

Koscheck, 31, a former NCAA wrestling champion, is coming off a loss on Oct. 25 to Thiago Alves. He insisted he keep his spot on this show when asked less than two weeks before the fight before the Alves fight to replace an injured Diego Sanchez against the most dangerous striker in the division.

"He was the better man on that night," said Koscheck, whose legs were battered by Alves’ hard kicks throughout the fight.

But when the fight was over, he made it clear he still wanted to fight on this show, giving him almost no time to nurse any injuries from the fight.

"I feel like I’ve been living at AKA (The American Kickboxing Academy gym in San Jose) for the past six months," said Koscheck. "After the fight (with Alves), I had three days off and was back sparring by Wednesday. Because my thigh was so sore, I didn’t grapple for a few more days."

"You can call this judo against wrestling," said Yoshida. "I feel I come from the subset of judo and he comes from the subset of wrestling and we represent those sports. But this is a mixed martial arts match, so the match will involve everything."

New drug testing program in California

Bill Douglas, the assistant executive officer of the California State Athletic Commission, who is now running day-to-day operations after the resignation of former executive officer Armando Garcia, will put his new drug screening program into effect for shows starting on Dec. 11.

The policy will include testing for recreational drugs of virtually every fighter on every show. On the major shows, every fighter will be tested for steroids, and on smaller shows, all main eventers, fighters in title matches and random undercard fighters will be tested.

The steroid testing will use Olympic standards, using the World Anti-Doping Association lab at UCLA, the same lab that does the testing for the Olympics, the NFL, NCAA Division I sports and minor league baseball.

"My mentality is very different from my predecessor," he said. "I don’t have a 'gotcha' policy and we’re not looking to be happy catching people.

"I never hide that I’m a big professional wrestling fan," said Douglas.

"I have an extensive tape collection of pro wrestling and it’s depressing when you watch matches from 15 years ago and how many of the people have passed away. I’m starting a tape collection of boxing and MMA, and I don’t want to look back in 15 years and see the same thing happen."

He noted that he’ll never forget the feeling he had in 2005 when Eddie Guerrero, a pro wrestling superstar, was found dead in a hotel room just hours before he was scripted to win a world heavyweight championship.

"If this testing forces people to deal with issues ahead of time, it may allow their families to have more time with them, save them from health problems in later life or even premature death."

Douglas is attempting to get new bylaws passed which would give California the same powers as Nevada, including the ability to overturn a decision if the winner has tested positive for a performance enhancing agent, and the ability to begin a year-round testing program.

The new bylaws are currently under review by the state department of finance. The current program, which only tests the day of the fight, won’t catch fighters using many steroids during the off-season and early in training.

At this point there are no provisions for blood testing, so the current program cannot detect usage of Human Growth Hormone.

He also has two key issues on his agenda. Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva, the Elite XC heavyweight champion, tested positive for Nandrolone on July 26 and was suspended for one year. Silva just signed to fight in Japan on Jan. 4. Douglas has sent a letter to Silva’s camp, noting California bylaws call for revoking someone’s license who fights while under suspension, which essentially would mean Silva wouldn’t be able to fight in any U.S. commission state even after the year is up.

He also noted not only the fighter, but his manager and corner men, can have their licenses revoked because the California code has a provision for anyone aiding and abetting a suspended fighter from violating his suspension.

The second, a non-drug issue, comes from Affliction and M-1 announcing earlier this week that Gilbert Yvel, nicknamed the "dirtiest fighter in the world," had signed to face Josh Barnett on the Jan. 24 Affliction show in Anaheim at the Honda Center.

Yvel was denied a license in Nevada when PRIDE wanted to use him in 2006, due to his checkered past, which includes biting an opponent in 1998, repeated eye gouging in a famous 2001 Japanese match with Don Frye, and most notably, decking referee Atte Backman and kicking him while he was down in a 2004 match.