Chael Sonnen: I’ve Never Taken Or Been Accused Of Taking Steroids

Former UFC star Chael Sonnen has claimed that he’s never taken steroids, insisting that not all banned substances are performance-enhancing.

The topic of PEDs has hit mainstream discussion in recent times owing to the current status of the sport’s biggest star, Conor McGregor. The Irishman has been out of action since breaking his leg last July at UFC 264. Ever since, he’s been on the road to recovery following surgery.

But in 2022, talk of a comeback has come along with a controversial absence of drug tests. After a report marked him as the only active athlete to have not been tested this year, it emerged that McGregor had removed himself from the USADA testing pool, sparking accusations that the former two-division champion departed the program in order to use banned substances.

Many notable figures have spoken out against the alleged practice, which one reporter branded ‘The Conor McGregor Rule’ following claims that TJ Dillashaw is following suit with his retirement.

But there’s one man who’s been staunch in his defense of the “Notorious” star.

Sonnen Cites His Own Past In McGregor Discussion

While he initially called on Conor McGregor to explain the situation, former light heavyweight and middleweight UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen has since claimed to have no doubt that the Irishman is “clean.”

In his defense of the former champ-champ, “The American Gangster” suggested that his exit from the testing pool is likely a move to avoid any whereabouts violations. Should the reason have been to utilize every available substance in order to ensure he makes a full recovery, Sonnen sees no issue with that either.

And during a video uploaded to his YouTube channel earlier this month, Sonnen looked back on his own prominent drugs controversy, which saw him suspended by the NSAC after testing positive for an unallowably high testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio of 16.9:1 at the time of his first loss to Anderson Silva.

As he did at the time, Sonnen insisted that he’s never taken or been accused of steroids, outlining that the list of banned substances doesn’t necessarily comprise solely of performance-enhancing drugs.

“Do you know I’ve never taken steroids? Would you like to know, I’ve never even been accused of it,” Sonnen said. “Never in my career, (was I) even accused of it. I ended up in a jam over a drug test, and boom, that’s what the media said. It instantly went to steroids. Kenny Rice, who I’m not giving a hard time to… went on television, one of the few MMA shows that existed, said that I failed a steroid test.

“I’m looking and going, ‘Kenny, I didn’t even take a steroid test. I was never accused of steroids… I didn’t even take a steroid test!’ … I saw the way that the wave goes… I’m (bringing this up) to prove a larger point,” Sonnen added. “In the world of PEDs… It is believed that it is performance-enhancing drugs that are on the banned list. There’s a number of things that are performance-enhancing that are allowed. Does that surprise you? There’s a number of things that are banned that are not performance-enhancing.”

In his defense to the 2010 suspension, Sonnen — whose T/E ratio was nearly 17 times more than a normal man’s and over four times the allowed maximum for an athlete — claimed to have a medical justification for taking testosterone.

At a hearing, Sonnen testified that he’d been diagnosed with hypogonadism a couple years prior and was undergoing testosterone replacement therapy, self-injecting synthetic testosterone two times a week.

Ultimately, the issue became primarily based on Sonnen’s failure to disclose the condition to the NSAC, rather than any intent to seek an advantage through the use of a banned substance.

Linking the situation back to the current discourse surrounding McGregor, Sonnen stated that it would be entirely justifiable for a fighter like McGregor to exit the USADA testing pool in order to freely access any and all prescribed medical substances during recovery from a serious injury.

“Before you think that Conor’s on something illegal or even an anabolic, wouldn’t it be responsible for him to take what he could that was prescribed for him by a doctor without having to juxtapose it against a USADA pool which, by the way, he’s no longer in?”

What do you make of Chael Sonnen’s remarks on steroids and PEDs?

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