Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior Dos Santos was notified of a potential USADA testing violation shortly before his fight against Francis Ngannou at UFC 215.
The Brazilian has stated all along that he is innocent of all charges and now he also claims he is a victim of the USADA organization.
“At first I was devastated,” Dos Santos said to Combate. “I’ve been in favor of USADA, I’ve always said how much I support it, how much I want a drugless sport, a fair sport. I’ve always been clean, so my mind is at ease. Everything is under investigation, now, but that’s another problem, because I have no idea where this came from and it’s up to me to prove my innocence and that’s kind of weird. At first I used to think ‘Why is USADA there? For cheaters or for the ones who play by the rules end up as victims?’ I’m obviously a victim of a situation that I don’t what it is. I’m getting major support from USADA and from the UFC in my search for answers. This not knowing is absurd, it eats you up inside, it’s like tearing your soul apart. I’ve always been very vocal about all this, but now the only thing I ask myself is if USADA is there for cheaters or for innocent people who end up in this situation.”
USADA has yet to reveal any kind of punishment for the fighter, who hasn’t competed since a loss to UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic at UFC 211.
Dos Santos initially thought that the potentially failed drug test was a prank, until he got home.
“Until I got home, I thought it was a prank, I couldn’t believe it,” Dos Santos said. “I talked to my wife and she told me USADA had notified me. I said ‘For the love of God, it can’t be possible. What could I test positive for?’ I called up the UFC people the following day and they told me it was a diuretic. It was such a small amount of it, it couldn’t even act as a diuretic in my system. It even took me a while to urinate on the day I had to take the test, so it wasn’t acting as a diuretic that day. But they found it and the rule is the same for everyone. Not matter how little of it they found. This certainly shows that there was a contamination. They had nothing else to do but to notify me and pull me out of the fight.”
If the potential drug test failure turns out to be completely true in all of its findings, then it is the first failure for Dos Santos.
