UFC fighter Sean O’Malley was recently handed a six month suspension from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after failing a drug test this past September.
If there is one thing that O’Malley truly believes after getting suspended, it is that he didn’t do anything to get punished in the first place.
“It sucks,” O’Malley said on The MMA Hour. “I didn’t do anything, so getting suspended at all, it sucks, and getting fined also sucks. It sucks getting in trouble for something I didn’t do. Six months, I wouldn’t be able to fight within this next six months anyway; well, within the next three or four months, because the suspension came the day of the test, September 5th. I just got surgery three weeks ago on my hip, so I’m going to be rehabbing that and hoping to return within the next five or six months. So as far as the suspension goes from the athletic commission, six months, and then we’ve still gotta deal with USADA, figure out that. So I don’t know. My lawyers are working on it and trying to figure it out. We’ve still gotta test a bunch of supplements. I tested [positive for] .08 nanograms, which is a very small amount. They’re confident. The UFC knows I didn’t take anything. They know it’s a tainted supplement. I think USADA knows that, I think the athletic commission knows that. This isn’t a rare thing. It’s common, it happens, especially with the stuff that I tested for, which is Ostarine — it’s in a lot of stuff. I think my fans really have my back, and it does bother me when I read stuff online and people say, ‘You cheater,’ when I didn’t do anything. And I know those guys are just haters or they’re trying to get a rise out of me, or whatever it is, but it sucks hearing that from people because I really didn’t do anything. It’s just, it is what it is.”
O’Malley is eligible to return to action on March 6, as the suspension was retroactive to the date of the test failure.
While not all fighters who have been suspended would see the positive, it is a situation that O’Malley calls a blessing in disguise.
“Jeff Novitzky, when he called me that day, I sent him all my supplements and he said, ‘I have a strong feeling it’s those caffeine pills.’ So those were the only things we sent in because he was sure it was those, and it ended up not being those, so we just sent in all of my other supplements last week,” O’Malley said. “And those take a couple weeks to get back, so I’m just patiently waiting. My lawyer is helping me a ton, Jeff Novitzky is helping me ton, the UFC is helping me a ton, so it’s just a waiting game right now. But really, it doesn’t matter. It’s just, I’m recovering from this hip injury and I’m going to get back in the gym. I have a fire in me. I want to train. I haven’t been healthy. Going into that last fight, that October fight when I was supposed to fight ‘El Teco,’ I wasn’t healthy. I needed this hip surgery, my foot wasn’t healed. So it’s a blessing in disguise. I’m healing up from a bunch of injuries and I’m excited to come back.”
The suspended O’Malley did have hip surgery while serving the suspension and is expected to be back in training before the sentence is fully served.
