Brock Lesnar suspended one year, win changed to No Contest

Fighters who leave the UFC and return are ordinarily subjected to a four-month waiting period during which they are tested for PEDs. However, before his fight with Mark Hunt at UFC 200, Brock Lesnar had the requirement waived, as he left the UFC before the advent of USADA.

Mark Hunt warned loudly that Lesnar was taking performance enhancing drugs. And then Lesnar failed a doping test, but the results came back after the fight had ended with Lesnar taking a Unanimous Decision. An enraged Hunt has refused to fight since.

Lesnar tested positive for the estrogen blockers clomiphene and hydroxy-clomiphene. They are not notably performance-enhancing on their own, but would typically be taken at the end of a cycle to restore normal functioning.

Lesnar vowed to get to the bottom of it all. A former sparring partner suggested that it could have been caused by the asthma inhaler Advair. Lesnar’s team later looked at foot cream and an eye medication as sources of the failure.

Now the Nevada State Athletic Commission has suspended Lesnar for a year retroactive to the date of the fight with Hunt, overturned his win to a No Contest, and fined him $250,000. The fine is 10% of Lesnar’s $2,500,000 disclosed purse. The commission voted unanimously to accept the terms of the agreement at a hearing today.

USADA categorizes clomiphene and its metabolites as specified substances due to the greater likelihood of a credible non-doping explanation for a test failure. Thus Lesnar avoided the two-year suspension for a first-time PED test failure.

Lesnar will be eligible to fight again on July 9, 2017. To do so he will be required to submit clean drug samples 30, 15, and 3 days prior to a fight.

At the same hearing Jon Jones was given a punishment identical to that meted out by USADA. Further, Nate Diaz was fined $50,000 for throwing a water bottle towards Conor McGregor, which represents 2.5% of his declared $2,000,000 purse, and must serve 50 hours of community service.

McGregor was also involved in the game of bottle frisbee and has requested for a judicial review of his penalty.