Former three time UFC Featherweight Title challenger Chad Mendes hasn’t been seen in the octagon since the UFC Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale in December 2015, as he’s serving a two year suspension from USADA for a failed drug test.
Mendes is now preparing for life outside of the UFC and MMA.
“Most of my time, honestly, at this point, is Finz and Featherz (Mendes’s hunting store) throughout the entire day,” Mendes said to MMA Fighting. “Planning and finalizing and ordering and setting things up, then training in the evening. But man, it’s growing fast. We launched it in Dec. 2015, so last year was the first solid, full year, and man, we had an amazing turnout. Honestly, I was a little nervous. This is something I’d talked about and planned with a good buddy of mine, my business partner, for a few years, and decided to pull the trigger and just see. And it’s scary, man, because you just never know. Are we going to put all of this money into this and grow this and then nobody books anything? Or, is it going to just be out of control? But it was good, man. We had a tons of bookings, sold out everything last year and it was awesome. We grew it this year, probably doubled in size, and it’s going to continue to keep doing that and adding new trips and picking up new celebrities to be a part of it, and hopefully to the point where that’s a full-time job, and when I’m done fighting, I have something to fall back on.”
Despite serving the suspension, Mendes still has the will to fight again.
“I mean, it sucks. Obviously I love competing and I wish I could be fighting. But I feel like everything happens for a reason, and maybe this is supposed to be. So I’m just going to keep controlling what I can, and that’s my training and pushing myself and continuing to put my time and energy into growing this business, and having a damn good time doing it, and just see where it takes me,” says Mendes.
Mendes has challenged for the UFC Featherweight Title three times in his UFC tenure, losing to Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo (twice).
