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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The Nevada Athletic Commission threw the book at Wanderlei Silva last summer due to him skipping out on a random drug test they attempted to administer ahead of a planned UFC 175 bout with Chael Sonnen.
Silva is now suing the Nevada commission, alleging that the commission overstepped their power given Silva was not a licensed competitor at the time they tried to administer the random test.
The argument from Silva's camp has been that Nevada's own statutes do not allow for them to impart discipline on a competitor they have not licensed, and that the lifetime ban they handed down was retaliatory and beyond the scope of their power as a regulatory body. Check out the full filing below:
Penick's Analysis: A ruling in Silva's favor effectively kills random out of competition testing for PEDs, because if the precedent is set on this one, the argument can be made that no fighter can be tested until they've been licensed. If that's the case, fighters may not seek a license in Nevada until much closer to the date of their scheduled fights in that jurisdiction, allowing them to do anything and everything they want until they have to cycle down for that short time period before the fight. That said, the punishment handed down was overly harsh given what actual violators receive, so if he can win that argument, there's a chance he could still wind up fighting again.
[Wanderlei Silva art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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