In less than a months time, the Strikeforce promotion has had two high profile fighters test positive for a banned steroid. The first was former women’s featherweight champion Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos, who tested positive following her December bout versus Hiroki Yamanaka and just yesterday, the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced that light heavyweight Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal had tested positive for Drostanolone.
Lawal had his recent win over Lawrence Larkins changed to a “No Contest” and faces further disciplinary action from the Commission.
On Wednesday, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker released this statement regarding the announcement from the NSAC.
“STRIKEFORCE has a strict, consistent policy against the use of any performance-enhancing drugs, including the requirement that all incoming athletes be tested and cleared for PEDs. Therefore, we fully support the drug testing efforts of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and we will fully cooperate with the Commission regarding the matter pertaining to Mr. Lawal’s test. We also recognize that Mr. Lawal has administrative process rights under Nevada law, and we hope that he is not prejudged before exercising such rights.”
We’ll have to wait and see what goes down as Lawal and his manager Mike Kogan have already stated they were “surprised” by the result.
Where there’s smoke there is fire.