Stephan Bonnar finally opens up about steroid use, says he wasn’t trying to cheat

5630464471 df325084e6Stephan Bonnar recently spoke with Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour after what was a 5-month long absence following his match with P4P king Anderson Silva.

Bonnar tested positive for the performance enhancing steroid known as drostanalone just after the losing the fight via TKO. According to the interview he didn’t take the substance looking to cheat but rather to quickly heal his ongoing knee issues in preparation for the biggest fight of his life:

“Believe it or not, there are some therapeutic uses to some of the banned substances. Bottom line, I wanted to get my strength back. I was very weak. My body didn’t feel good, my joints didn’t feel good. That was my goal.”

Knowing full well that he wasn’t in fighting shape, and with only three weeks left to train, Bonnar felt he ultimately made the right decision:

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“I’m not a stupid person. Of course, I know I’m going to get tested. I got three weeks to train for the fight, and 35 pounds to lose, and you really think after that I’m going to take something that’s detectable for a month? That makes no sense. Absolutely none.”

Although Bonnar had been told that the substance would be out of his system by the time testing came around, that unfortunately did not happen to be the case.

In a matter of days Bonnar was left with both a devastating loss and a public lashing by both the fans and his long time friends/employers at the UFC. After campaigning so strongly for a big fight before his exit from the sport, Bonnar seems filled with shame after tainting such a lucrative once in a life time opportunity:

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“That was the hardest thing, too. You know, there’s no way if I thought there was any possibility of it showing up, that I would have taken the fight. I finally get the opportunity I’ve been begging for in vain for so long. I thought I’d go out there and put on a better fight, but then stuff like this happens. It’s like I came to his house and took a s— on his carpet. It just kills me. I’m like, ‘Come on, Dana, give me this opportunity,’ and then I make him look like that. I’m really sorry.”

“I feel the best thing for me to do is to respectfully piss off. It’s not to sit there and go, ‘Oh, come on Dana, give me another chance.’ I f—– up and I’ll put my tail between my legs and leave you guys alone for a while.”

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Bonnar relayed in the interview that he is unsure what the future currently holds for him, nor does he know exactly what he plans on doing. The only thing he knows is that although he won’t be fighting any longer, he would still love to remain working with the sport in some capacity.

“That was really important to me, to be part of the UFC in ways other than fighting. That’s been hardest thing for me. I worked so hard over the years doing all those things to kind of give myself a home in the UFC outside of the actual fighting part of it, and I feel I ruined that.”