When Nate Diaz announced a PED test was flagged and he wasn’t having, it was quickly announced – as the hardcore MMA fanbase knew as a stone fact – that he was guilty of nothing. However, there was a widespread sense that Diaz was treated because he is a Money Fighter. However, UFC anti-doping czar Jeff Novitzky explained that things were by the book.

Talking to Nate, when he was taking that multi-vitamin, it matched perfectly, said Novitzky, as transcribed by Steven Marrocco for MMA Fighting. And we waited, and we did this on purpose.

I said, ‘Look, we’ve changed our policy now, where we don’t publicly announce things, we have this threshold for this substance. I think you’re going to fall under, so look, if you don’t want it out there, I wouldn’t tell anybody, or not talk about that.’ Anyone who insinuates that that means we weren’t going to tell the commission, that is absolutely false. The minute that first positive test came in, I called [UFC executive] Hunter [Campbell], who I report to, Dana was brought in, and we started talking about getting the commission as much data as possible. Let’s wait until we accumulate it all, and that’s what happened.

Hunter said this, and [NYSAC Executive Director] Kim Sumbler has verified it, that he then reached out to her before Nate went public with this.

If anyone’s criticizing us for all hands on deck, getting this done quick for a main event fight, OK, bring that on. That’s just a reality. But every other fighter on the roster is going to get our help and our services just like we did with Nate in this case.

This isn’t a knock on the commissions, but unless you do this full-time, and study these things like USADA, who runs our program, and we do, it’s difficult to get an understanding of it. I would guess that if we didn’t have this program, you’d be seeing quite a few positive tests from the commission level at very low levels.

And Novitzky has nothing but respect for Nick Diaz’s actions.

If you’re really not doing something on purpose, and you’re told, ‘Look, this isn’t going to get out there unless you talk about it,’ and you talk about it anyway, you talk about proof in the pudding for what kind of guy he is.”