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UFC veteran Cung Le talks about his failed drug test in 2014 that resulted in a year-long suspension.
UFC veteran Cung Le ended his MMA career on a sour note. Not only did he badly lose to Michael Bisping in what would turn out to be his final fight, his legacy was also marred when he tested positive for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) afterward.
With the absence of an MMA regulating body in Macau, China, the UFC was forced to take matters into their own hands for the August 2014 event. That involved handling the drug testing procedures for competing fighters.
The UFC apparently took Le’s test right after his four-round slugfest with “The Count,” and as he argues, his HGH levels were naturally higher.
“They said I took HGH,” Lee said on the latest episode of BJPENN.com Radio. “Dr. [Don] Caitlin, an Olympic testing specialist, didn’t stick up for me because he knew me or liked me. He stuck up for his 10 years of research saying that UFC’s claims against me for taking HGH were wrong.
“If you’re doing testing, you have to test when [the test subject] is fasted and when their resting heart rate is normal or when they just woke up,” he explained. “They literally tested me and Michael right after the fight. I was clean of everything else. I even took another test and put it out there and compared the two tests.
“Of course my HGH level was spiked because I literally got blood drawn out of me right after the fight. They pulled me back to the bathroom when I was all bloody, I actually had just lost the fight. I went four and a half rounds against Michael Bisping. Of course my levels are going to be elevated. I’m bleeding out of my face, the bone underneath my eye was broken.
“So my body was trying to heal itself right then and there, of course my HGH level’s going to be through the roof,” Le continued. “And then for them to throw me under the bus…”
Le asked for Bisping’s test, but was later informed that they were immediately destroyed after they were drawn. He was handed a yearlong suspension for the ordeal, but he decided to retire in early 2015.
“I asked them, ‘hey, where’s Michael’s test?’ [I said] ‘I want to do the blood test again, let’s do it again.’ They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s been destroyed.’ So right there I knew if you’re not on their team, if you’re not with them, you’re against them.”
Le is also part of the ongoing class-action lawsuit against the UFC, which was filed in 2014.