Update:
On the FS1 show, America’s Pregame, Dana White and Chael Sonnen were both on to discuss his failure.
From Dana:
– His reaction wasn’t one of shock. He expected some repercussions from guys getting off TRT.
– He doesn’t believe anyone is on TRT any longer. Wishes the commission never let anyone on it because getting off it is hard.
– Chael was on some of the “estrogen blockers” to try and have a baby.
– The NSAC needed to lay out the rules better, rather than just forcing everyone to go cold turkey.
– Chael’s fault also to not let the NSAC know what his doctor was giving him to come off TRT.
– Doesn’t believe they have a drug problem. Doesn’t think anyone has done more than the UFC when it comes to working with commissions and paying out of pocket for enhanced drug testing.
From Chael:
– There is a transition period and he had to be on the medications and if they make him choose between health and his sport, that’s not a hard choice.
– He hadn’t spoken to the commission about what he was taking. He says that he was out-of-competition and USADA showed up unannounced and didn’t give him a chance to disclose.
– He knows that the drugs he was taking were on the banned list, but he’s trying to differentiate between in-competition and out-of-competition.
– He’s appealing based on this information and calls it unprecedented.
– He says he also took hCG, which I’m not sure he failed for. He thought he would fail for hCG, but didn’t expect to fail for clomiphene.
– He says the difference between he and Wanderlei is Wanderlei ran from a drug test and he’s instead being transparent about what he was taking, which weren’t illegal and are instead banned.
– He said his doctor told him he needed a 50 day plan of taking these drugs which would help him get off TRT. He said by May 1, the drugs were supposed to be out of his system (but earlier, he said he thought he’d fail for hCG) and they weren’t according to the USADA test, which he says was more sensitive (meaning better) and found things they didn’t think would be found.
Original post
According to Brett Okamoto from ESPN.com, Chael Sonnen failed a random drug test.
The debacle that has been the ill-fated Chael Sonnen vs Wanderlei Silva fight that changed to Chael Sonnen vs Vitor Belfort has become even more of a debacle.
Based on Okamoto’s story, Sonnen failed for drugs that have been historically used to try and kick-start testosterone production.
The substances Sonnen tested postive for are classified as anti-estrogenic.
Anastrozole is used to treat early stages of breast cancer. Clomiphene is used in cases of female infertility.
It would seem to me that these drugs are proof that he does indeed need TRT to fight, but Clomiphene is banned, and thus, he’s off the card. I imagine we’ll hear more about this, including Chael’s story soon. We’ll update this as more information becomes available.