Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) heavyweight champion, Fabricio Werdum, flunked an out-of-competition drug test administered by United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) back in April.
While the prohibited substance has yet to be identified, the Brazilian insists he was being extra careful with the products he ingested and is confident this latest hiccup was nothing more than a dirty lab simple misunderstanding.
“I am working with my team, the UFC and USADA to understand what happened,” Werdum wrote on Instagram. “I’ve always been careful with everything I take and I’ve always supported a clean sport. We will work hard to solve this misunderstanding and I hope soon to be able to go back to the Octagon and do what I love.”
Werdum was expected to headline the UFC Moscow event against Alexey Oleynik in September and unless he’s able to prove his innocence, a suspension from USADA will undoubtedly cancel those plans.
“Vai Cavalo” joins a not-so-illustrious list of Brazilian all-stars, including former champions Anderson Silva, Junior dos Santos, and Lyoto Machida, among others, who ran afoul of USADA in recent years.
I blame this.