NSAC rebuts Sonnen’s expected claims of approved testosterone use

Sonnen fought Nate Marquardt in Nevada this past February, after the Okami fight, so I called Keith Kizer, Executive Director of the Nevada commission. According to Kizer, Sonnen never applied or was approved for testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). Not in February or any of his previous fights in Nevada. Before the Marquardt fight, he applied and was approved for Soma/carisprodol (a muscle relaxer recently banned completely by WWE because it can cause intoxication while others don’t and are more effective) for sleep as long as he didn’t take it the night before and doxycyline (an antibiotic) for acne.

The only name fighter who has applied for and gotten the exemption is Dan Henderson, who tests at below-normal levels even while receiving the TRT. Any fighters undergoing TRT in Nevada still need to test as levels where a fighter without an exemption would pass. Also, the rules were recently changed so that fighters who are undergoing TRT because their natural production of testosterone was damaged due to previous steroid abuse would not be granted an exemption. As Meltzer noted, in WWE, wrestlers can get TRT approved if they damaged their natural production through steroid abuse, but nobody undergoing TRT will be hired.

Since Matt Hughes started TRT after his last fight in Nevada and doesn’t have any fights scheduled there at the moment, he didn’t come up.

It’s one thing to claim that he didn’t do an interview that was obviously him, but how the heck did Sonnen think he’d be bulletproof here? Why didn’t he apply for the exemption in Nevada in February if he was really undergoing TRT since at least the previous October? I highly doubt that he just stopped his TRT: He would’ve crashed, not won a fight against a top level opponent, much less have a fight so exciting it got the fight of the night bonus.

Maybe “some hispanic guy” actually failed the drug test.

read entire article…