Brendan Schaub Furious Over Brock Lesnar’s USADA Exemption
Just a little over a week ago, current WWE superstar and former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar decided to come out of retirement for a short-notice bout against Mark Hunt at UFC 200. Apparently, the bout was signed the night before it was announced, but it had been in the works long before that, as Lesnar had been training for the fight since back in April.
Typically, if a fighter is to come out of retirement, or if the UFC signs a new fighter, they need to give the United States Anti-Doping Agency four months notice so the organization can have an adequate amount of time to test the fighter leading up to his or her bout. But, the UFC announced Lesnar vs. Hunt just a little over a month before it’s scheduled to take place, and because of that, the current WWE star was granted an exemption by USADA.
The exemption caused a bit of outrage within the mixed-martial-arts community, particularly with active fighters. Lesnar’s opponent Mark Hunt has said that he exemption is “complete b******t,” adding that he thinks the ex-UFC Champ is “juiced to the gills.”
Hunt isn’t the only person who is outraged over the exemption, as former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub said during his podcast — The Fighter and the Kid –– that he thinks Lesnar was juiced prior to the bout being made official, but now he’s been able to cycle off of whatever he was on, so he can be clean for UFC 200.
Schaub: Hunt should be able to take 'whatever he wants' for Lesnar fight https://t.co/Ah9CBTTf7P
— Bloody Elbow (@BloodyElbow) June 13, 2016
Schaub also said that he thinks that Mark Hunt should now be allowed to take as many performance-enhancing drugs as he wants to leading up to his fight with Brock Lesnar.
“He [Lesnar] could have gotten off of them, and tailored off. Now he can fight and be clean. So I’m retired and let’s say they want me to fight; I have to give the drug testing sanction, body a four-month heads up like, ‘Hey, I am thinking about fighting.’ They will be like ‘Okay, you have four months where we are going to test you and you got to be clean.’ He skipped all of that and now he only has four weeks where they can test him. Does no one think this is fishy? Hey man, you can’t do that! Mark Hunt should be able to take whatever he wants.”
According to the USADA’s public testing records, Lesnar is yet to be tested, and it’s unclear just how many times the agency will test him leading into next month’s UFC 200.
To be fair, Lesnar never tested positive for anything during his first UFC run. But, back then, the drug testing wasn’t as stringent as it is now.
Lesnar has also denied being on steroids in the past, and he even stormed out of an ESPN interview when the interviewer was about to ask him if he had ever taken steroids.
It’s unclear if WWE ever tests Lesnar, and given the very part-time nature of his contract, it’s probably safe to assume that they don’t.
People will always question whether or not Lesnar is clean due to his freakish physique and his incredible athleticism. But, as previously mentioned, Lesnar has never failed a drug test at any point in his professional wrestling or mixed-martial-arts career. So it’s probably safe to assume that he won’t fail any of his drug tests leading into UFC 200 on July 9.
[Image via Eric Jamison / AP Images]
