USADA Suspends UFC Middleweight Two Years For Steroids

The United States Anti Doping Agency (USADA) has suspended Khalid Murtazaliev two years for testing positive for banned substance drostanolone.

Murtazaliev defeated C.B. Dollaway in his UFC debut last September. However, that win may not be as impressive as once thought.

USADA announced Friday (Feb. 22, 2019) that Murtazaliev, a Russian native, tested positive for drostanolone, which is an anabolic steroid. The positive results are from out-of-competition samples collected Oct. 3, 2018, and Dec. 6, 2018. USADA has suspended Murtazaliev for two years, per the official release.

The release also stated that the two positive results will be treated like one as USADA’s rule book. Essentially, the evidence indicates Murtazaliev used one time prior to the sample collected on Oct. 3.

The report did not indicate whether or not Murtazaliev’s win over Dollaway will be turned to a no contest. You may remember, veteran referee Herb Dean took some heat for a late stoppage in this fight. The fight was his UFC debut. He spent much of his career fighting for Fight Nights Global.

Dollaway had this to say about the stoppage:

“I’ve been on the other side before, where I thought a fight got stopped too early for me,” Dollaway said afterward. “But, being on the other side now, it’s like — it’s a rough job being a ref, they want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, you’re there to protect us, and I don’t know what was going on, but I don’t feel like I got protected. He didn’t stop the fight. Ever.

“Like, he was telling me to get on the stool and I didn’t even want to fight. Like, ‘Dude, I’m done.’ I was pretty out of it. I’m going to go out and take more punishment, that’s all that was going to basically happen at that point. I understand being a referee’s a tough job, we all make mistakes in life. It just sucks when it’s you.”