Junior Dos Santos Issues Statement On USADA Test Failure

When news arrived Friday that former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos had been flagged for a potential USADA anti-doping violation, the MMA world lost its best current heavyweight bout with “Cigano” forced out of his UFC 215 barnburner with rising star Francis Ngannou.

Ngannou not surprisingly reacted with anger and went on to seek a short-notice fight with former title challenger Alistair Overeem. Dos Santos’ team clarified the situation by revealing he had tested positive for the diuretic Hydrochlorothiazite in the August 10 out-of-competition test, and they were working diligently to find out if it had been the result of a tainted supplement, a go-to reason for fighters who test positive that has nonetheless been proven a cause of false positives in the still-developing era of USADA drug testing in the UFC.

Now, dos Santos himself has addressed the elephant in the room, issuing a statement to his Instagram account proclaiming his innocence and that truth would prevail because he would never cheat. When it does, he hopes to get his fight with “The Predator” re-scheduled:

“Hey everyone, I am here at home and I am not here to give an explanation. Soon everything will be clear to all of you and no doubts that truth will prevail. I am here in respect for all of you guys. I just want to say that this situation is very tough, for me, my team and my family. I would never cheat, it goes against everything I stand for, I play the fair game. We will get to the bottom of this and figure out what happened, learn from it and move on. I hope in the near future Francis Ngannou and me can face each other and give you guys the show you were expecting. For now, thank you very much for your support, it means a lot to me and that’s why I am here. Good night.”

Oi pessoal Eu não estou aqui para dar explicações, logo tudo será esclarecido para todos vocês e sem duvidas que a verdade prevalecerá. Eu estou aqui em respeito a todos vocês. Eu só quero que saibam que essa situação tem sido bastante difícil para mim, meu time e minha família. Eu nunca trapacearia, isso vai contra tudo o que acredito e apoio. Nós estamos investigando isso a fundo e logo descobriremos o que aconteceu, aprenderemos com isso e seguiremos em frente. Mas eu espero que em um futuro próximo, Francis Ngannou e eu possamos nos enfrentar e dar a vocês, a luta que estavam esperando ver. Por agora, muito obrigado por todo seu apoio, isso significa muito para mim e é por isso que estou aqui. Boa noite.

A post shared by Junior Cigano Dos Santos (@junior_cigano) on Aug 19, 2017 at 11:20pm PDT

There’s no reason to believe dos Santos would be lying to his fans based on any past history with banned substances, of which he has none, but the process will play out according to the guidelines in place.

It’s also hard to come up with a good reason why a heavyweight who never threatens the division’s 265-pound weight limit would need to use a banned diuretic, which is used to rapidly cut water weight by flushing the system – other than that he was trying to purge his system of other banned substances by using them.

Regardless, he and his team have claimed complete innocence since the disappointing news came, and we’ve seen multiple fighters have their USADA sanctions reduced based on a tainted supplement before. We’ll see if that approach holds up for “Cigano” so he can give his fans the showdown with “The Predator” they were anticipating.