Junior Dos Santos’ Team Reacts To Potential USADA Violation

The MMA world was dealt a somewhat shocking blow yesterday (Fri., August 18, 2017) when news broke that former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos had been flagged for a potential USADA violation, forcing him out of his awaited UFC 215 match-up with rising prospect Francis Ngannou.

Specific details of his out-of-competition test failure were unclear, but dos Santos’ manager Ana Guedes offered two statements to MMA Fighting to clarify the situation somewhat. First off, Guedes stood fast in her stance that “Cigano” is and always has been against performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in MMA, adding that he’s never used them and fully supports USADA’s efforts to clean up MMA:

“We are still trying to understand the test results, so that we can investigate and determine what happened. What we know as of now is that Junior dos Santos has never taken PEDs, has never knowingly used any banned substances, and has always supported USADA’s policies and efforts to keep the sport clean.

“If ever there was a fighter who made his position on this issue unequivocal, it’s Junior. We are confident that that we will be able to figure out what happened, and will provide an explanation once we have one.”

A second statement then delved much deeper into the exact specific nature of his potential violation, where Guedes detailed that dos Santos had tested positive for banned diuretic Hydrochlorothiazite. Guedes described how the team was exploring any and all options to find out just how dos Santos ingested the substance, working with the UFC’s athlete health and wellness department to determine if a tainted supplement was to blame:

“Junior tested positive for a substance called Hydrochlorothiazite, which is a diuretic and is banned by USADA due to its use as a masking agent,” the second statement read. “We do not know where this substance came from. Junior has had his blood and urine randomly tested many times and has never once tested positive for a banned substance.

“We requested testing of his B sample today. Most times, the B sample will show the identical results as the A sample. Therefore, we are already working on analyzing his nutritional supplements and medications, to determine whether anything might have been contaminated. Jeff Novitzky and Donna Marcolini of the UFC have provided the guidance for this process, and we are grateful to them for their professionalism and competence.”

Finally, Guedes reiterated that even though her client was supposedly bearing some of the unfortunate consequences of the much stricter testing, dos Santos remained in full support of USADA’s efforts, and had also offered an apology to Ngannou in hopes of rescheduling their potentially explosive fight at a later date:

“Junior remains committed to and supportive of USADA drug testing – even if he is bearing an unfortunate consequence of it. He spoke personally with Francis Ngannou, and apologized for the unintended consequence to him. Junior thanks Francis for the sympathy, understanding, and respect that transpired during their call, and very much looks forward to resolving this situation so that he and Francis can set up a new date to face one another.”