Earlier this month, the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) unanimously voted to uphold the one-year suspension of former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante. The 31-year-old Cavalcante tested positive for metabolites of the anabolic steroid stanozolol in the aftermath of his May 19 victory over Mike Kyle.
Though Cavalcante’s case was not as cut and dry as most. The CSAC, a commission already without the most sparkling reputation in the fight world, upheld its ruling despite admitting to mishandling several aspects of the testing process.
“Once again, it goes to show you what a joke the California State Athletic Commission is,” Cavalcante’s manager, Ed Soares, fumed on Wednesday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “It’s just a bunch of idiots out there, man. I just can’t believe that they’d sit there and admit they were wrong the way that they did. ‘Oh yeah, we did this wrong, we did that. There was a line of custody, a chain of custody that was wrong. But, we’ll fix it next time.’ For now he still has a full-year suspension. It’s completely ridiculous. I don’t even know what else to say.”
Cavalcante was fined $2,500 along with his suspension.
Soares, who just returned from Brazil at the time of this interview, remains infuriated by the CSAC’s complete disregard of protocol and revealed he plans to take legal action now that he’s back inside the United States.
“I’m going to look into it,” said Soares. “In any court of law (this wouldn’t stand). They basically had the wrong date on the paperwork, they had the urine sample taken from the wrong location. [CSAC chief inspector] Che Guevara said that he threw away the urine sample on the 18th, which he didn’t. It was another guy. The guy lied under oath. Where does it begin? If we were in a court of law, that case would’ve been thrown out. In the chain of custody, how could you have the wrong date, the wrong place where you took the sample, and still consider it fine? That’s ridiculous.”
Along with managing several high-profile MMA fighters, Soares was recently named the new president of Resurrection Fighting Alliance, a Nebraska-based promotion whose roster counts notable names such as Gilbert Yvel, Joe Stevenson, Tyson Griffin, Dakota Cochrane and Bubba Jenkins.
Soares is wary of his criticism of the CSAC affecting his ability to promote RFA events. But the way he sees it, somebody has to take a stand.
“It’s a joke,” Soares sighed. “I hope they can’t take away my promoter’s license, but I guess [UFC President] Dana [White] has had his share of words with the athletic commissions. But what I believe is that they’re unethical, they’re unorganized, and it just doesn’t make any sense they way that they operate.”