(“I swear to God, you guys, I had an injury THIS BIG.” Photo courtesy of Getty Images.)
It’s weird to think about, but the fallout from Stephan Bonnar’s second post-fight steroid bust at UFC 153 has almost been completely washed over by the MMA community. Although his one-year suspension was obviously negated by the fact that he retired from the sport shortly thereafter, even UFC President Dana White — who has been in Bonnar’s corner ever since his legendary fight with Forrest Griffin at the TUF 1 Finale – has all but refused to comment on the situation.
And as for Bonnar? Well, the normally outspoken light heavyweight has been similarly silent — likely due in part to the birth of his son — since exiting the UFC on such terrible terms. Until now, that is.
For the first time since the fight itself, Bonnar addressed the factors that led him to get popped for Drostanolone following UFC 153 during an interview on The MMA Hour (Author’s note: WHAT ABOUT US, STEPHAN?). Although Stephan took full responsibility for his actions, his reasoning for why he fell back on the juice yet again didn’t exactly absolve him of all guilt (via MMAFighting):
…after being shelved for months and being advised to retire by UFC president Dana White, he had given up hope of closing out his career with a major fight…But then, out of the blue, the semi-retired fighter got the phone call he never thought was coming. After about 10 months without a fight, he was being asked to compete against the the sport’s pound-for-pound king, Anderson Silva.
Believe it or not, there are some therapeutic uses to some of the banned substances,” he said. “Bottom line, I wanted to get my strength back. I was very weak. My body didn’t feel good, my joints didn’t feel good. That was my goal.
Poor Stephan; the dude spent upwards of seven years fighting for the UFC and never realized that there was a completely legal way to deal with the aging process.
According to Bonnar, the hardest thing he has had to deal with since leaving the UFC in disgrace hasn’t been the dirty looks or vehemently-worded tweets from fans, but the distance that has grown between himself and the organization he called home for the majority of his MMA career:
You know, there’s no way if I thought there was any possibility of it showing up, that I would have taken the fight. I finally get the opportunity I’ve been begging for in vain for so long. I thought I’d go out there and put on a better fight, but then stuff like this happens. It’s like I came to his house and took a s— on his carpet. It just kills me. I’m like, ‘Come on, Dana, give me this opportunity,’ and then I make him look like that. I’m really sorry.
The only question that remains is: Where does Bonnar go from here? Well, he’s come up with a simple solution for that:
I feel the best thing for me to do is to respectfully piss off. It’s not to sit there and go, ‘Oh, come on Dana, give me another chance.’ I f—– up and I’ll put my tail between my legs and leave you guys alone for a while.
Farewell for now, dearest Stephan. At least we’ll always have these memories…
