Anderson Silva Doesn’t Believe PED Usage Tainted His MMA Career
Anderson Silva doesn’t think that despite his past usage of PEDs has had an impact on his MMA career or legacy.
The former UFC middleweight champion was pulled from his scheduled bout against Kelvin Gastelum at the UFC Fight Night 122 event after he was flagged due to a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) violation. He tested positive for two banned substances, methyltestosterone and a diuretic.
Those samples were collected back on October 26, 2017. For his latest failed test, he received a one-year suspension from USADA dating back to October of 2017.
This wasn’t the first time that Silva tested positive as he did for anabolic steroids drostanolone and androsterone in 2015. He would later blame his first failed drug test on a Thai sex drug. This forced him to be on the sidelines for one year.
‘The Spider’s’ Thoughts
Silva told Combate in a recent interview that he doesn’t worry too much about if those positive tests impact his legacy. In fact, he doesn’t think they do due to him supposedly having no control over it.
“I don’t think [they taint my career],” Silva said. “Both me and Jon Jones have been through some difficult things in the sport. To come back from what we had to live through, that’s more than loving what you like. It takes a special kind of person. I have great affection for him.
“We talk whenever we can, I try to give him some of my experience as to how to live in the fighting world, but behind the cameras. Jon Jones has everything to create a great story. He already is a great story. You can’t debate what he did for the sport. The things he did, which I ended up doing, they were flaws we had no control over and we paid for them. There were more good things than bad. Jon Jones has my respect, I’m sure he’s the absolute champion of this sport.”
Silva is scheduled to take on Jared Cannonier at the upcoming UFC 237 pay-per-view event from Rio de Janeiro next month.
