UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen saw his suspension reduced on Thursday, when the California state athletic commission ruled the original one-year penalty would be cut in half to six months during an appeal.
Commission members voted for the reduced penalty 3-1 after the four deadlocked on upholding his original one-year suspension. Commission executive officer George Dodd, who was a witness in the hearing, did not vote.
The suspension stemmed from a positive drug test produced from Sonnen’s UFC 117 pre-fight urine sample. Testing showed his testosterone to epitestosterone ratio to be 16.9, well above the legal threshold of 4.0
In the nearly two-and-a-half hour Sacramento hearing, Sonnen, his attorneys and physician argued that he had been undergoing testosterone replacement therapy since 2008 to address hypogonadism and had previously disclosed his testosterone usage to commission members.