For years, mixed martial arts was the wild west. With no sanctioning or legitimate government body of any kind, it was a free for all, at least chemically speaking.
Steroid use among some of the sport’s muscle-bound elite was assumed—likely for good reason. Those athletes had to clean up their acts when state regulators took over in places like Nevada and New Jersey.
Today, almost every athletic commission tests for a variety of drugs. In places where there is no commission, the UFC conducts their own internal testing. Fighters know the tests are coming—but some still risk months on the sidelines and thousands out of their purses to try to get an edge.
What follows isn’t a list of all the drug test failures in MMA history. That slideshow would break even a web behemoth like Bleacher Report. For your consideration, instead of a comprehensive list, I present eight of the most disappointing drug test failures in MMA history.