The Regie des alcools des courses et des jeux, Quebec’s regulatory board governing combat sports, reported Thursday that there were no drug test failures from UFC 158.
UFC 158 took place on March 16 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, headlined by Georges St-Pierre retaining the UFC welterweight title in a five-round decision over Nick Diaz.
The drug issue came to the forefront both before and after the fight due to comments from Diaz, who had claimed his opponent used steroids, admitted his own well-known use of marijuana and said that he hoped he would pass the test and stopped using early enough, but hardly said so with certainty.
After the fact, the Diaz camp, through attorney Jonathan Tweedale, had complained of the commission’s failure to supervise St-Pierre according to protocol when he gave his test sample.
The commission itself only released that six of the 24 fighters were tested, and would not release their names. The complaint by Diaz’s camp would indicate awareness the UFC’s welterweight champion was one of those tested. It is considered standard operating procedure by commissions that don’t test most or all fighters that both participants in the main event, particularly if it is a championship fight, will be tested. Others are often chosen at random, or based on the position on the card, if they won, and if they had a prior track record regarding failing tests. Diaz had two test failures for marijuana in Nevada during his career and it was his first fight since coming off a one-year suspension for the second failure on February 4, 2012.
All of the controversy leading up to the fight, mostly created by Diaz comments in interviews the last few days before the fight, led to the fight being among the biggest in UFC history. The weigh-ins on Fuel drew more viewers than all but a few actual live fight cards on the station, and ended up as one of the most-watched shows in station history. Current pay-per-view estimates for the event have topped 900,000, making it the largest numbers for a show where St-Pierre, the company’s biggest drawing card, was in the true headline position and in the top ten in company history.
Diaz announced his retirement after the fight, but later said he would be willing to fight against either St-Pierre or Anderson Silva, both fights that it would be nearly impossible for UFC officials to justify without Diaz winning some fights in between.