The Top MMA Fighters That Got Caught Cheating By USADA
Before USADA started testing UFC athletes, there were many questionable athlete physiques, to say the least. Launched in 2015, the UFC anti-doping program was to ensure that fights were fair since it was quite easy to get around the simple procedures they had in place.
Not only this, but by testing their fighters through an accredited program such as USADA, UFC removes their liability of being sued by fighters because of injury. For example, if there was no anti-doping system in place and a fighter on TRT/Steroids and any other cocktail of performance enhancers knocked out a clean fighter, there would be an argument that they should have not allowed this fight to take place. By working alongside USADA, the UFC minimizes the risk of this happening.
After the introduction of USADA in 2015, there was quite a shake up of fighters that dropped out of the top 10. There is still a lot of speculation about who was actually using PED’s and who wasn’t as some fighters were on a natural career decline. A prime example of this is Vitor Belfort who looked a shadow of his former self after mandatory testing was introduced. The physical transformation shown in the featured picture for this article shows a gigantic difference in appearance.
For fighters that had never used PED’s, USADA was a great equalizer. Whilst it’s still possible to cheat drug tests, it becomes a lot harder when you can be randomly tested on any day of the year.
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The Negatives Of USADA
One lesser mentioned unwanted effect of USADA has been the controversy surrounding some of their bans. Whether you believe the excuses, there have been incidents in which fighters have taken something after a fight they believed was a legal substance, only to find out weeks later this was banned. This causes embarrassment, suspensions, and questions the fighter’s true intentions. Not only this, but in more recent years, the legitimacy of USADA as an organization has been under the spotlight after various scandals and debatable test results.
Many of the fighters listed will certainly feel hard done by given the evidence surrounding their bans. Some fighters have been treated differently to others based on the same substance, whereas others have had extremely harsh punishments for minor infractions. Perhaps the main takeaway is that USADA is treating a very grey area as black and white.
The Top 5 Fighters That Got Caught Doping By USADA
Brock Lesnar
When Brock Lesnar tested positive for clomiphene a lot of eyebrows were raised. For those who are unaware, this is a hormone control drug mostly used by infertile women who do not ovulate. Although Lesnar was never caught using steroids alongside clomiphene, this is a combination often put together so not to get any side effects.
Unfortunately for Mark Hunt, the results of this test came too late after he had finished a 3 round fight against a juiced up Lesnar, as some consolation this was overturned to a no contest, but being in the cage with Brock Lesnar is hard enough without PED’s. Lesnar was eventually fined $250 000 and suspended from fighting for one year, which ultimately became his retirement.
TJ Dillashaw
A fighter that has fallen from grace in more recent years. Dillashaw was once UFC bantamweight champion until he tested positive for EPO and was kicked out of Team Alpha Male for bullying accusations.
EPO is not a drug commonly associated with MMA and has traditionally been linked with sports such as cycling, particularly the Tour de France. The idea of using this PED is to stimulate red blood cell production so you can fight for a lot longer at full cardio capacity. Arguably, this is one of the few steroids about which doesn’t make you look a certain way, yet still has clear, advantageous results for your body.
As a result of this failed drugs test, Dillashaw was stripped of his title and banned for 2 years, although his win during this period was surprisingly not taken from him.
Jon Jones
A two-time USADA victim, Jones has received both a 12 and 15 month suspension, 2 years apart from one another.
The first time Jones was caught was 2016, where he tested positive for clomiphene. This substance was also taken by Brock Lesnar, and although neither men were caught using anabolic steroids alongside this, cloriphene is a fertility drug used by women and not commonly associated with top tier MMA fighters.
In 2018, before his scheduled fight with Daniel Cormier, Jones was again caught by USADA, this time for using a chlorine-substituted anabolic steroid. For this infraction, Jones received 15 months with no license to fight and a fine of $205k.
It should lastly be mentioned that Jones was also found to have turinabol in his system before UFC 232 and was not granted a license to fight by Nevada. After the UFC moved the entire event to California on short notice, Jones was allowed to fight Alexander Gustaffson. There is a double standard to this line of drug testing since Frank Mir was given a 2 year suspension for an almost identical situation.
Chad Mendes
When Chad Mendes was caught using Hexapeptide, he blamed it on a skin cream he used for psoriasis. Hexapeptide enables the release of growth hormone in the body and landed Mendes a 2 year suspension.
Whether Mendes was telling the truth or not is for anyone to decide for themselves. Mendes did seem to take some of the blame saying “I didn’t do my homework and now I’m going to pay for it”, seemingly accepting his punishment at the very least.
Anderson Silva
In 2018, Anderson Silva tested positive for methyltestosterone, which is a synthetic anabolic steroid. As a result of this, Silva was suspended for 1 year and his fight against Nate Diaz was overturned from a unanimous win to a no contest. From the perspective of Silva, he has always denied knowingly taken synthetic steroids and claimed this positive test was from a tainted supplement, but we will never know the full truth.
Silva returned to the cage after this ban, but his career was never the same, winning only a single fight and losing 5, before retiring from MMA altogether.
Fighters Who Have Been Hard Done By USADA
Yoel Romero
Due to his age and physique, Yoel Romero has always been the target of speculation for PED use. However, Romero has only been caught using a banned substance once during his career. In 2016 the Cuban fighter tested positive for Ibutamoren, a drug that will encourage the body to produce growth hormone.
Although there is no doubt that this was in Yoel Romero’s system, the supplement he took did not have this on the label. As there was no possible way for Romero to know this, it is a little harsh that he was slapped with a 6 month suspension. Eventually, Romero was able to sue the supplement company for $27 million in damages, although it is not known just how much of this sum he received. Overall, it’s not too surprising that Romero was on PED’s due to his incredible physique which looked incredible considering his age.
Josh Barnett
Prior to USADA testing within the UFC, Josh Barnett had been busted for using steroids on 3 different occasions. Perhaps the most infamous of these was a cocktail of steroids he was found to have taken after UFC 36. In fairness to Barnett, this was even a couple of years before his appearances in PRIDE which had explicit contracts stating that you would not be tested for steroids – so the use was very common.
In an out of competition test in 2016, Barnett tested positive for the banned anabolic substance Ostarine. However, when Barnett claimed his innocence, it was found that Ostarine was present in a supplement Barnett had taken with no warning on the packaging. Therefore USADA handed no suspension and Barnett was only given a public reprimand. This process took 15 months as Barnett was originally given a 4 year suspension, which is an exceptionally long time for a fighter towards the end of their career.
This case alone has cast a lot of doubts upon USADA, with Barnett eventually retiring after revealing he had no trust in the agency.
Frank Mir
After being tested before his main event loss against Mark Hunt in 2016, Mir was suspended for 2 years after testing positive for a metabolite of DHCMT. Better known as turinabol, this is an anabolic steroid that Jon Jones also tested positive for during his career. Turinabol is clearly a performance enhancing drug as it allows muscles to build much faster and is something usually prescribed to people who have muscle wasting diseases.
Perhaps more controversial is that there is a decent chance that Frank Mir is 100% innocent. Mir always denied that he ever used PED’s and for a larger man, Mir was a submission specialist so did not require quite the same amount of muscle or power as his opponent.
Further doubt was cast upon USADA after Jon Jones tested positive for turinabol in which they suggested his system could be “pulsing”.
To briefly summarise, there is at least some chance Mir took some sort of turinabol laced supplement during his career which remained in his system for an extended period of time. Despite all of this, his suspension was upheld.
Lyoto Machida
One of the most controversial bans dished out by USADA was to Lyoto Machida who used the substance 7‐keto‐DHEA. Machida filled this response out on his supplements form – so pretty much admitted using it before he was tested, which goes along with his story that he did not know it was banned.
To add further evidence to this, 7‐keto‐DHEA was not listed as a banned substance on the Portuguese translated USADA website. One more factor in this case is that 7‐keto‐DHEA does not promote muscle growth and is purely a weight loss supplement. Machida had previously missed weight 2 fights prior to this test, so it would make sense he was using a substance like this. Arguably, Machida’s USADA ban serves as an example of how steroid use is often a grey area in terms of what is deemed legal, and what isn’t.
Nick Diaz
Beginning with the lesser publicized of Diaz’s run-ins with USADA. The older of the two brothers was suspended from fighting for one year, as a result of not fulfilling his whereabouts duties. This essentially means that Diaz could not be located 3 times in a row to take a drugs test. Of course, this could mean anything from Diaz avoiding USADA, not caring about them, or simply not bothering to show up when required.
The most controversial suspension ever (which was eventually overturned) was when USADA banned Diaz from fighting for 5 years for using marijuana. When compared to PED’s, this is extremely draconian, especially when considering that using marijuana is not really a performance enhancer at all – and make actually makes an athlete perform considerably worse.
This sentiment was echoed by a number of other professional fighters who agreed with the absurdity of the 5 year suspension. In the end, Diaz was not suspended for 5 years but had to pay a $100 000 fine. Ironically, it would be 6 years before he stepped in the octagon to fight again which meant that his ban effectively ended his MMA career.
