That headline is not a typo: ESPN.com’s MMA page is reporting that UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen is suspended from fighting in not one, but two states.
Sonnen has had an ongoing issue with the Nevada State Athletic Commission ever since having his fighter’s license suspended for failing a drug test back in September of 2010.
That suspension, reduced from one year to six months, was over in March, but Sonnen has yet to receive a new license in Nevada.
CSAC executive officer George Dodd said the suspension was issued after their legal panel felt that Sonnen may “have perjured himself during a testimony at an appeal hearing in December related to his ban for elevated levels of testosterone.”
This seriously affects Sonnen’s ability to get back in the Octagon, since this suspension “asks North American regulatory bodies to contact California before issuing the UFC middleweight contender a license to compete, corner, promote or act as a manager.”
Sonnen and his lawyers asked for a CSAC special hearing on May 18 in Los Angeles to have the suspension revoked, and the CSAC obliged.
The topics will not just pertain to Sonnen’s failed drug test for elevated testosterone; the legal charges he received last month from a money laundering scandal in Oregon are also going to be brought into the discussion.
Just to reiterate, Sonnen received 24 months’ probation, a $10,000 fine and the suspension of his realtor’s license in that case.
Dodd eventually decided that Sonnen’s questionable testimony, as well as his actions as a business professional, brought “discredit to the mixed martial arts community,” which he felt was enough to suspend his license indefinitely.
Officials in both California and Nevada agree that no one was aware that Sonnen was receiving testosterone therapy for hypogonadism, a condition that limits the body’s natural production of the hormone.
ESPN.com also reports that Sonnen has been receiving treatment for this condition since February of 2008. However, Florida’s athletic commission indicated that Sonnen’s drug test from his November 2008 fight with Paulo Filho came back clean.
Marc Ratner, the head of regulatory affairs in the UFC, indicated that he had “no idea whatsoever” that Sonnen was receiving prescribed testosterone until his failed drug test in 2010.
Ratner, who is also a former head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, indicated that he never gave Sonnen permission to receive testosterone therapy, although a “therapeutic use exemption” is not unheard of in this situation.
Even more interestingly, Dr. Jeff Davidson, a physician hired by the UFC, says that he knew about Sonnen’s hypogonadism treatment prior to his August title fight with Anderson Silva.
This actually further hurts Sonnen’s case, though, as Davidson wrote to the CSAC that Sonnen never disclosed his treatment to regulators.
Should Sonnen fail to have the suspension repealed on the 18th of this month, it is quite possible that his MMA career could come to an unceremonious end.
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