Nevada governor declines to re-appoint controversial commissioner Pat Lundvall

Mixed martial arts is regulated in Nevada by the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC), popularly known as the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC). The commission is made up of five part-time members, each of whom is appointed by the Governor for a three-year term. The chairman is appointed by the Governor for a two-year term.

The current Chairman is Anthony A. Marnell III; the remaining four members are Francisco V. Aguilar, Skip Avansino, Pat Lundvall, and Michon Martin.

The commission appoints an executive director to conduct the day-to-day operations of the commission. Former FBI agent Bob Bennett has served in that capacity since April of 2014. The commission also has four full-time staff members in addition to Bennett. The office of the Attorney General serves as legal counsel to the commission.

One member of the commission, Pat Lundvall, has frequently been singled out by the hardcore MMA fanbase for what is alleged to be an unfortunate, confrontational, antagonistic attitude towards fighters. Lundvall, a litigator with 25 years experience, has served for nine years on the commission, and in 2009 became the first female chairperson of the NAC.

Some wag trolled the NAC Wikipedia page with an entry that sums up the general feeling towards the commissioner:

The other members are Skip Avansino, Bill Brady, Pat “The Wicked Witch” Lundvall who is also known as the worst human in Las Vegas as voted by the fans of MMA in 2015, and Anthony Marnell III.

The enmity comes from a number of episodes, but perhaps the most prominent was her motion for Nick Diaz to be suspended for life, after the commission mistakenly charged that he had failed a test for marijuana a third time. Her second motion was for a five-year ban, and that was unfortunately approved by the commission. Diaz’s attorney then engaged in settlement talks, and eventually a suspension of 18 months was quietly agreed upon.

However, Diaz should have been suspended no months.

Jeff Novitzky knows more about PED and drug testing than does the NAC. He may well know more about the subject that anyone ever. And he said bluntly and very respectfully that the NAC got it wrong.

I think though that they’re at a big disadvantage in that anti-doping is a very difficult field to 100% comprehend,” explained Novitzky. “Those commissioners are part-time, at best. The Executive Director, Bob Bennett, who runs the anti-doping day to day operations, that’s only a small part of his full-time job. I’ve been immersed in anti-doping for 13 years, and I’m still constantly learning and struggling to keep up with the intricacies of it. It’s a difficult topic and area, but it’s one you have to get perfect, and all that being said, they didn’t get this one perfect. They got this one wrong, in my opinion.”

There is no disputing that Diaz failed a test for the demon weed twice, at UFC 143 and PRIDE 33. However, for the UFC 183 suspension to have made sense, Diaz would have to have smoked during fight night, and then unsmoked an hour later.

Diaz was administered three tests on Jan 31. The threshold for a positive result for marijuana is 150 ng/ml. Anything under that and you have passed – commissions generally do not and should not care if you smoke marijuana recreationally or medically. It is only fighting while high that is prohibited.

The first and third tests were by the World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) in Salt Lake City. The middle test was administered by the non-WADA accredited Quest Diagnostics.
7:12 p.m. – 48.73 ng/ml (PASS)
10:39 p.m. – 733.23 ng/ml (FAIL)
11:50 p.m. – 61.04 ng/ml (PASS)

There is some question about how long the human body takes to metabolize the active ingredient in marijuana. For a regular user it can be up to ten days, with four days being close to the norm. It is not 71 minutes.

In sum, the tests from the most reputable lab showed unequivocally that Nick Diaz passed. And for that, Lundvall wanted to ban him for life.

The Diaz debacle was far from the sole troubling episode involving commissioner Lundvall. When UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor threw water bottles at a UFC 205 media event, Lundvall motioned for a $150,000 penalty. UFC president Dana White, who is ordinarily deferential to commissions across North America, correctly if indelicately characterized the fine as insane.

McGregor said he was done fighting in Nevada for the “foreseeable future.” When Conor McGregor shows up to fight in a city, it is good the city. McGregor has fought in Vegas five times, bringing in tens of millions of dollars.

Now Marc Raimondi reports for MMA Fighting that after nine years on the commission, Lundvall is gone as of November 1. She reportedly got a call from Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office on Thursday and was told she would not be re-appointed.

“I have served three terms for a total of nine years with the NAC. I considered every minute of it as a privilege and an honor,” wrote Lundvall graciously.

And then the hardcore MMA fanbase did this: