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UFC LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAEL SONNEN ADDRESSES FAILED DRUG TEST ON AMERICA’S PREGAME TODAY
UFC president Dana White also interviewed about the situation
VIDEO: Dana White’s interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
VIDEO: Chael Sonnen’s interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
UFC light heavyweight fighter Chael Sonnen discussed his failed drug test with host Mike Hill on FOX Sports 1’s AMERICA’S PREGAME today. Hill also interviewed UFC president Dana White to get his reaction. Below are quotes from those interviews:
Chael Sonnen explains his positive drug test: “There is a huge distinction between illegal versus banned. These are perfectly legal substances. These are not performance-enhancing drugs. These are not anabolics. These are not steroids of any kind. Look, they [the Nevada State Athletic Commission] changed the rules and I’ve got to comply with the rules. However, there is a transition period and I couldn’t have been more open or more transparent. Whether it was UFC TONIGHT, whether it was different interviews, anybody that I could tell or talk to about this, I did. And these are the medications that you have to go on to lead a healthy life. If they’re asking me to choose between my health and my sport, that’s not a choice I can make. I’ve got to choose health.”
Sonnen on if he told the UFC what he was taking: “I wouldn’t be dealing with the UFC officials [on this issue]. This would be between me and the [Nevada State Athletic] Commission and no, I had no opportunity to go before the Commission. I had not spoken to them. The only opportunity you’re ever given to disclose a medication that you’re on is in competition when the State of Nevada comes to you, you do have a form that you can fill out. This was out-of-competition. This was done by a separate lab known as USADA. It’s the finest lab in the world. But these were also strangers. This was not the Nevada Commission that came to me and there was no attempt to have a disclosure form. But even if I had disclosed it, you have to understand this was out of competition and an athlete does not have to remain off of medication 365 days a year. Not in the NCAA, not in the IOC and not even with the Nevada State Athletic Commission; this is unprecedented. As an athlete, if I break my arm and the doctor gives me Vicodin, Vicodin is extremely illegal on fight night, but it’s also an extremely appropriate medicine to cure somebody’s pain if he has a broken arm, and the message that they are sending here is completely wrong.”
Sonnen on if the substance he took was on the banned list: “Yes, it is on the banned list. But you have to understand, that’s for competition. If this was game day, I would not be making any of these statements I’m making to you right now. On game day, you have to come in right. But out of competition, an athlete cannot take an anabolic, he cannot take a performance-enhancer and he cannot take a steroid. The former executive director has many quotes out there that I will bring in to the Commission when I appeal this thing, stating that there is a significant difference between game day and the other 364 days of the year.”
Sonnen on if he’ll appeal: “Absolutely.”
Sonnen on why he took what he took: “I took, under the care of a physician, a perfectly legal medication that is not a performance-enhancer. In fact, one of them is an estrogen blocker that blocks a hormone, even though it’s a female hormone.”
Sonnen on his transition off of testosterone: “I had to take these drugs because they banned testosterone. So to be in compliance, you have to stop with testosterone. Now there’s a transition phase, to come off of testosterone healthily. I have a legitimate medical need for testosterone. I was not an abuser. I was a user of testosterone. So when you come off of this and you have a medical need, you must transition. What you’ll take is Clomiphene and HCG. I took Clomiphene and HCG. This also serves as a fertility drug. That was an accident. I was having fertility issues. That’s not part of my life that I wanted to share with anybody else. And we had success. I took these substances. They’re not illegal and not performance enhancing.”
Sonnen on how he’ll be labeled because of this positive test: “Throughout my career, I have had a number of labels. But in nine months, I will have the label of parent and father and if I have to go through this and choose between having the label of being a father and a parent or having the label of being an athlete, I am going to choose every single time parent and father. I know what I have done and if I had to do it again, I would do it exactly the same way 20 more times.”
UFC president Dana White on if he was shocked by the positive drug test results: “My reaction isn’t shock. This has been lingering. This stuff was legal. TRT was legal and then the Nevada State Athletic Commission said, ‘It’s illegal now, it’s got to go away.’ But, there are going to be effects of stopping this thing cold turkey. It just doesn’t work that way.”
White on if this positive drug test implies other athletes are on drugs: “Nobody is on it. Just to clear the air here, nobody is on TRT. And, we only had five guys out of over 500 that were ever on TRT, and it was absolutely legal. And then the [Nevada] Athletic Commission changed the ruling and said, ‘It is now a banned substance, you cannot take it.’ There are only really two of our big stars that are dealing with the effects of TRT - Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort. This thing has been bad since day one and I wish that the Commission never let anybody use TRT. They didn’t go a very good job of figuring out how to get these guys off of it. When you get off of it, you don’t just go cold turkey, there are things that you have to do. If they don’t take these estrogen blockers, they can get side effects from it. Chael Sonnen is at this point in his life and his career, where he got married and was trying to have children and he was on medicine to help with fertility and have a baby. This is between Chael and the Commission, but the rules should have been laid out better when they said that’s it, it’s over. Because here is the big problem, too: even when it was legal, the Athletic Commission and all of the doctors were never on the same with page with the [testosterone] ratios and all of these other things. It was always a nightmare, so it had to go away. I’m glad it’s gone and we’re just dealing with all of the aftermath.”
White on who’s at fault - Sonnen or the Nevada Athletic Commission: “Both are at fault. I think the Nevada State Athletic Commission could have laid it out better for how they were going to end this thing. What would be banned and what wouldn’t be banned for the guys coming down off of it. But again, it’s a matter of them not being very educated on TRT. It’s the thing that made this whole thing impossible anyway. And it’s Chael’s fault too, because Chael should have called the Athletic Commission and said, ‘This is what my doctor told me I need to do to come down off of this stuff, so here is what I’m taking.’ He absolutely should have done that. Because Chael had conversations with his doctors and he’s looking at this thing like, ‘I shouldn’t be in a situation where I have to choose between either my job and the sport and my health, my life outside of fighting.’ And he’s right about that.”
White on if the UFC has been doing enough to deal with drugs in the sports: “For us, we’ve been the guys who have taken the drug testing head on. We’ve worked with the athletic commissions to take out-of-competition testing. We are paying big money for some of these guys to be tested. Jon Jones wanted Glover [Teixeira] and him to be tested all the through the lead up to their last fight and we paid for that, too. There’s nobody out there that’s doing more for testing than we are. And this whole thing that was blown out of proportion by the story that ESPN did where they said, ‘These [testosterone] exemptions were rampant throughout mixed martial arts,’ there were only five guys out of 500 that had testosterone exemptions.”
