The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #53 with Jeff Novitzky

00:00:00.000 Four, three, two, one.

00:00:08.000 Boom.

00:00:08.000 Got a little thing going on here now.

00:00:10.000 A little circle.

00:00:11.000 Hello, Jeff.

00:00:12.000 Merry Christmas.

00:00:13.000 What's up, Joe?

00:00:13.000 You too?

00:00:14.000 How you living?

00:00:15.000 Not been the easiest week in my life or my career is last week, but hanging in there.

00:00:20.000 To make this stand-alone so that people don't have to go figuring this out on their own, and I'm sure many, many fans that are tuning in already know the gist of the details, let's lay this out from the beginning.

00:00:33.000 John Jones' initial failed test.

00:00:36.000 Yeah, so that was July of 2017. He tested positive for approximately 20, anywhere from 20 to 60 picograms of a long-term metabolite known as the M3 metabolite of a substance called dihydrochloromethyltestosterone, DHCMT, also known as oral terinabol.

00:00:57.000 And this was over a year ago.

00:01:01.000 What was determined to be the source of this stuff?

00:01:04.000 Never determined what the source was.

00:01:06.000 So John went through a full arbitration hearing, was never able to determine where it came from, tested all the supplements he was using, went through many interviews with USADA, had a full-on arbitration hearing.

00:01:21.000 The source was never determined where it came from.

00:01:24.000 Why was his suspension so low or so short if it wasn't determined?

00:01:30.000 There's many factors that go into what that suspension was.

00:01:33.000 I would argue in the totality of the evidence that was presented in that arbitration that it wasn't a short suspension because really one key thing came out of that arbitration.

00:01:45.000 John went to arbitration before an individual by the name of Richard McLaren.

00:01:50.000 Richard McLaren has an arbitration group up in Canada, and McLaren is probably worldwide known as one of the most credible guys in anti-doping.

00:01:59.000 I know you had the Icarus producer-director on.

00:02:03.000 The McLaren report was the report that came from all that.

00:02:07.000 He basically investigated the Russian state being involved in doping in the Sochi games and put out actually a series of reports on it detailing that up to 1,000 Russian athletes We're breaking the rules, and the Russian laboratory was helping them get around it. 0.51

00:02:24.000 He's a very, very respected guy.

00:02:26.000 He's independent of, obviously, the UFC. He's independent of USADA. He acts on his own.

00:02:33.000 And his determination was?

00:02:34.000 His determination and I'll read you kind of what he said.

00:02:37.000 He said, I find that all evidence available to me leads me to conclude that the violation was not intended nor could it have enhanced the athlete's performance.

00:02:50.000 So, A, non-intentional.

00:02:52.000 So, non-intentional ingestion.

00:02:54.000 I mean, there's no argument that it was in his system, but he found the evidence to show non-intentional use.

00:02:59.000 And then he went further, saying that based on the numbers of what he saw in the evidence, there was not even a performance-enhancing benefit afforded to John for having this long-term metabolite in his system.

00:03:10.000 And I think that's significant when you talk about, hey, 15 months, that's kind of light being that this is the second time through.

00:03:17.000 I would argue that That if there was an argument, that maybe it's on the higher end.

00:03:22.000 And certainly, you know, we'll talk about the California Commission.

00:03:25.000 Andy Foster took that position in John's recent California hearing.

00:03:30.000 He was a little bit critical of USADA. He thought, you know, he's intimately familiar with his evidence, both in the previous case and this occurrence, and he also saw that there was no evidence that an independent arbitrator, you know, made this statement and decision of John intentionally cheating.

00:03:48.000 So if anything, I'd say that potentially there could be an argument that it was on the higher end versus the lower end.

00:03:55.000 Because of the fact that it was an unintentional ingestion.

00:03:58.000 Exactly.

00:03:59.000 Now, what is John's excuse?

00:04:01.000 What has John said, how he got this into his system?

00:04:04.000 Yeah, well look, you know, it's detailed in the arbitration hearing at all.

00:04:08.000 John fully admits that, you know, some of the lifestyle decisions he was making, you know, the partying and things, you know, probably did not lead to making smart decisions and making smart choices in terms of what was being ingested in the body.

00:04:23.000 But certainly his testimony was under oath that I have never intentionally cheated and did not intentionally put this substance in my body.

00:04:31.000 And not only this case, but as we talk about the subsequent case here, I think you'll see that based on the numbers coming out of his tests and based on some studies that have been done on some of these substances, it would tend to support that.

00:04:45.000 Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't John test negative, then test positive for extremely low numbers?

00:04:52.000 This is the initial test, before we get into the most recent failed test.

00:04:55.000 He did.

00:04:56.000 Test negative, then test positive very shortly after with a very small trace amount.

00:05:03.000 So we had two negative tests on July 7th and July 8th, I believe, of 2017. And then weigh-in day, I think it was July 28th, he was positive for a very low level of the M3 metabolite.

00:05:16.000 And we might as well start here.

00:05:18.000 So...

00:05:19.000 Again, going back to Icarus, remember the doctor?

00:05:22.000 I mean, he's the main character in that, Rechenkov.

00:05:24.000 In 2011, he put out a study on oral turinibol.

00:05:30.000 He actually, my understanding, has dosed himself And then studied the excretion of his urine and what was coming out of it over the weeks and months after and determined that there were multiple, maybe up to 50 metabolites that once this DHCMT was ingested into the body, the body converted into other substances and these metabolites stayed around.

00:05:54.000 He identified some short-term metabolites.

00:05:58.000 Some medium-term metabolites and some long-term metabolites, specifically the M3 that John's tested positive for.

00:06:04.000 So these long-term metabolites would indicate that it was taken a long time ago?

00:06:09.000 They would stay around for the longest.

00:06:11.000 Why was he testing negative and then testing positive for these extremely low numbers?

00:06:16.000 That's a good question, and that's basically the question and point.

00:06:19.000 But what was not occurring and what has never occurred in any of John's samples is any presence of the short and medium-term metabolites.

00:06:30.000 And if you look at Rechenkov's study, he identifies a couple of these medium-term metabolites, Roman numeral I and Roman numeral II.

00:06:40.000 And he says these metabolites, based on his study, will stay in the body at least 22 days.

00:06:47.000 Well, let's look back to the July 7th and 8th positive tests.

00:06:51.000 He's negative on July 7th and 8th for everything, for the parent compound, for the short-term, medium-term metabolites, and the long-term metabolites.

00:07:00.000 Go 21 days later, so within that 22-day window, which his study shows the short- and medium-term metabolites would still be showing up, and there's no presence whatsoever of the short- or medium-term metabolites.

00:07:14.000 Now, again, we'll get into this a little bit more, but I think the science, what it's showing, is a pulsing effect for this long-term metabolite, meaning once you ingest, whether intentionally or non-intentionally, oral tyrinobol into the body, the body breaks it down, produces oral tyrinobol into the body, the body breaks it down, produces short-term and medium-term, which is visible for a short and medium amount of and then this M3, which is produced for a long period of time.

00:07:42.000 I think what the issue appears to be, and we'll get into this, the UFC program is not the only program that's seen this.

00:07:49.000 There's another professional sports league that has seen it very frequently.

00:07:53.000 USADA has also seen this on the Olympic side.

00:07:56.000 But we're seeing this strange action with the long-term M3 metabolite.

00:08:01.000 And the theory is...

00:08:02.000 It may be hiding in the fat tissues surrounding organs and maybe have a pulsing effect where it's released at certain times and other times you can't detect it.

00:08:13.000 And this is not the actual substance itself, but it's a metabolite.

00:08:16.000 Correct.

00:08:17.000 Which indicates a reaction to this substance?

00:08:19.000 It indicates the body breaking down the parent compound, the oral torinobol, and turning it into these other things which are stored in the body.

00:08:26.000 These metabolites are not...

00:08:28.000 Performance enhancing drugs that are the result of the breakdown of the parent drug in the body.

00:08:33.000 Now, how much time is it detectable, the actual drug itself?

00:08:37.000 So, pretty quick.

00:08:39.000 It's a pretty quick clearance time.

00:08:41.000 I think Rechenkov's study says, you know, maybe a week.

00:08:43.000 So it's not around for very long, and that's why he conducted the study.

00:08:48.000 Ironically enough, and I was going to go watch Icarus here last night, and I've had too much going on the last week to kind of refresh my mind, but apparently, this was part of his protocol for Russian athletes.

00:09:01.000 He knew a coach that was still giving the oral torrental ball to Russian athletes, and he had a falling out with the coach.

00:09:07.000 So he goes off on the side and studies, hey...

00:09:11.000 The parent compound is going to get in and out of the body pretty quick.

00:09:14.000 It's going to be difficult to detect that.

00:09:16.000 Let's try to figure out what stays around and leaves markers in the body for a long time.

00:09:20.000 And so he developed these short and long-term metabolite tests and was able to catch some of this coach's athletes for using the oral turinable.

00:09:28.000 Interesting.

00:09:29.000 So the actual drug itself is gone from the system, but the metabolite remains.

00:09:33.000 Now, what is the window that this metabolite is supposed to be detectable in the body?

00:09:38.000 Because we're talking now, what are we at, like 18 months?

00:09:41.000 Yeah, so here's the problem.

00:09:43.000 Supposed initial ingestion?

00:09:44.000 Yep.

00:09:44.000 Because my question is, these same long-term metabolites, these existed a year plus ago?

00:09:51.000 It was more than a year?

00:09:52.000 How long ago?

00:09:53.000 So July 2017 was the initial test.

00:09:57.000 So what all the experts, and we'll get through this, what all the experts are telling us is there is no evidence of re-ingestion.

00:10:03.000 And most likely, this is still remnants from the July 2017 test, however it was to enter into a system.

00:10:12.000 And we'll go through some of these testing numbers that have shown negatives followed by very low-level picogram quantities.

00:10:19.000 My question, though, was that The ingestion that happened that he tested positive for in July of 2017 indicated a long-term effect, right?

00:10:29.000 It was a long-term metabolite.

00:10:30.000 Long-term metabolite, correct.

00:10:31.000 So, meaning it had already been in his system for a year or so.

00:10:34.000 It absolutely could have predated.

00:10:36.000 You know, the theory the first time through was something had to have entered his system between July 7th and July 8th, those negatives, and this low picogram reading on July 28th.

00:10:47.000 Over this last year, there's been a lot of study into this long-term metabolite.

00:10:51.000 As I mentioned, this isn't just a UFC issue.

00:10:53.000 There's another major professional sports league that, for the time being, wants to keep their testing confidential, but they've shared that information with scientists, with USADA, with myself.

00:11:04.000 They saw it on multiple occasions, this pulsing effect over a year where you'd see...

00:11:09.000 But this is well over a year.

00:11:11.000 We're talking two and a half years now, right?

00:11:13.000 If it's in July, he had taken it a year ago.

00:11:17.000 Well, July 2017. We're talking a year and a half, right?

00:11:19.000 July 2017. A year and a half from July 2017, but it could have been in his system a year prior.

00:11:24.000 I don't know.

00:11:25.000 Yeah, it could have been a couple months, a year.

00:11:27.000 I don't know.

00:11:28.000 He had never showed up for that M3 metabolite 4. He had been tested for it.

00:11:32.000 He had been tested multiple times in the program.

00:11:34.000 Can you correct me if I'm wrong?

00:11:35.000 Sure.

00:11:35.000 Isn't the same level?

00:11:37.000 Isn't it approximately the same picograms that exist today in 2018 that were there in 2017?

00:11:46.000 Generally, if you look, and we can go over these numbers, it fluctuates from single digits, it never gets into triple digits, to mid-double digits.

00:11:55.000 So there's some as low as 9 picograms over that time.

00:11:58.000 There was some at 60 picograms.

00:12:00.000 Let's explain a picogram to someone, because it's a preposterously small thing.

00:12:04.000 It's insane.

00:12:05.000 And the analogy that I heard early on was, and I think John used this, throw a pinch of salt in an Olympic swimming pool.

00:12:12.000 And I'm like, okay, well that's...

00:12:14.000 You kind of wrap your head around that.

00:12:15.000 Let's go to the other side.

00:12:16.000 Let's talk about something really small that we know of and how many times you have to break down that small particle to get to a picogram.

00:12:23.000 So one grain of salt, and we all know what that looks like, right?

00:12:27.000 You put that in front of you, and you split that, and I mentioned this week 50 million.

00:12:32.000 It's actually 58 million.

00:12:33.000 If you split that 58 million times, a grain of salt, each one is a picogram.

00:12:38.000 I mean, it's incomprehensible.

00:12:41.000 The detection level and how small that is.

00:12:44.000 It really is.

00:12:45.000 It's crazy.

00:12:46.000 And how many picograms did they find in his system?

00:12:49.000 So he's gone from, and I'll read through it here.

00:12:52.000 So here's, since the initial appearance of the M3 metabolite, here's what John's tests look like in those picogram readings.

00:13:00.000 So the first one's collection date was July 28th, 2017. He had a concentration of 80 picograms.

00:13:09.000 However, let me caution and I'll read something from an expert.

00:13:13.000 When you get down to these picogram levels, the science is somewhat inexact because it's such a small amount.

00:13:21.000 So the variable, the plus or minus, you know, can be anywhere from 20, 30, I've seen in some instances 50 or 60. So what this scientist's name is, his name is Larry Bowers.

00:13:32.000 He was formerly the USADA science director.

00:13:35.000 He's currently retired and independently consults.

00:13:38.000 Before that, he ran an Olympic program.

00:13:42.000 Olympic Committee accredited laboratory at the University of Indiana.

00:13:45.000 The guy's got 20 to 25 years of anti-doping experience.

00:13:50.000 Here's what he told me about, you know, when you're analyzing small picogram levels.

00:13:59.000 Although the two respective laboratories...

00:14:03.000 Report a concentration.

00:14:05.000 I would caution against becoming too fixated on the numbers.

00:14:08.000 First, the numbers are really estimates of concentration and probably should be considered a range of about plus or minus 20 picograms per ml.

00:14:16.000 And he said the December 9th result would be in the range of John's, and we'll get to that, between 60 and 100. Second, while the adjustment of concentration by specific gravity attempts to deal with the variability of urinary excretion rates, it is inexact and adds variability to the estimates.

00:14:33.000 Finally, and most importantly, science has no clear understanding of the variance of urinary excretion of drugs at ultra-trace concentrations.

00:14:41.000 So basically saying, look, we have a general idea how this works in science, but...

00:14:46.000 And I think this instance comes to play.

00:14:49.000 Be real careful if you're going to be the guy with the pseudoscience out there saying, wait a second, John jumped from 20 to 60 from September to December, and that means he re-ingested it.

00:15:01.000 What he's saying here is slow your roll on that, that it's such a small, incomprehensible level that we don't really know what those variances are going to look like.

00:15:11.000 Now, I think if we saw jumps in John from single-digit 8 or 9 picogram to multiple 100-digit picograms, there would be a concern and maybe some re-administration.

00:15:21.000 But the experts I'm speaking to, when you're talking variability of 10, 20, 30, 40, it's not that significant at the picogram level.

00:15:29.000 What is the window where this long-term metabolite starts to express itself?

00:15:35.000 You said there's short-term and there's medium-term.

00:15:37.000 This is the long-term.

00:15:38.000 How long does it take before the long-term one?

00:15:41.000 That's a good question.

00:15:41.000 I don't have the answer to that.

00:15:43.000 It may be in Rechenkov's report here.

00:15:45.000 And I would encourage those that are home, you know, playing scientists at their computer.

00:15:51.000 The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rod Chinkov, writes a report, Detection and Mass Spectrometric Characterization of Novel Long-Term Dehydrochloromethyl Testosterone Metabolites in Human Urine.

00:16:07.000 I'm not sure when that long-term metabolite, how long it takes to show up.

00:16:11.000 Here's the problem, though, with this substance.

00:16:13.000 He did a real brief study.

00:16:15.000 My understanding is administered it to himself.

00:16:18.000 That's the only study that exists.

00:16:21.000 Oral terinobol, DHCMT, to my understanding, is not approved for use for human consumption anywhere in any country.

00:16:30.000 So you can't have clinical trials ethically in the medical world because it's just not legal to give this to human beings.

00:16:39.000 So, you know, we're already kind of behind the eight ball here in that As compared to other substances where you can do clinical trials because they're readily available via prescription or whatever, this substance is not.

00:16:52.000 The substance was created by the East Germans in the 70s and 80s and was part of their state-sponsored doping program where they were doping their athletes. 0.89

00:17:01.000 And can you correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe what I've read is that this is particularly effective when people are cutting weight.

00:17:08.000 Yeah, I mean— Is that true, or is this just more— I think some may be confusing terinabol with oral terinabol, two completely different substances.

00:17:20.000 There's very different effects on the body.

00:17:22.000 There's very different windows in terms of detection time.

00:17:26.000 Explain that to me, please.

00:17:27.000 You've got to be really careful in this world of performance-enhancing drugs.

00:17:31.000 There's names that are interchangeable.

00:17:33.000 There's different chemical names where you change a little bit of that chemical name.

00:17:37.000 It could mean a completely different substance.

00:17:40.000 There's instances where the chemical name is different, but the substance is actually the same.

00:17:44.000 So when trying to compare two substances, you know, make sure if you're at home doing that analysis, you're comparing the right ones.

00:17:52.000 Straight terinobol is different than oral terinobol.

00:17:55.000 What is the difference?

00:17:57.000 Yeah, I can't tell you.

00:17:58.000 I'm not as familiar with terinobol other than it's not oral terinobol.

00:18:02.000 So, but there is a difference in terms of the detection window?

00:18:06.000 Yeah, there would be.

00:18:07.000 I mean, different substances create and throw out different metabolites, and different substances have different detection windows.

00:18:14.000 So I haven't done my study and research on straight terinobol other than knowing it's different than the substance here.

00:18:20.000 So Grigory Richenkov, that's how you say his last name, right?

00:18:23.000 He was the only guy to do an actual verified study?

00:18:28.000 Correct.

00:18:28.000 Now, has this study been peer-reviewed?

00:18:31.000 Yeah, I mean, well, it's published in...

00:18:34.000 The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

00:18:37.000 So in order to get something published, it needs to be peer-reviewed.

00:18:40.000 Right.

00:18:40.000 So has it been replicated anywhere?

00:18:43.000 Not that I'm aware of.

00:18:43.000 No.

00:18:44.000 So we have one study, which is really fascinating.

00:18:47.000 Correct.

00:18:47.000 So we know that, first of all, we know this is an effect of steroid.

00:18:50.000 We know it works.

00:18:52.000 Yeah, the East Germans, I think, show that.

00:18:53.000 They wouldn't have been using it.

00:18:55.000 It's not an easy substance to get a hold of.

00:18:59.000 Look, when it's not approved for use anywhere in the world, it's only available on the black market, so you probably have to go to China to get it manufactured.

00:19:09.000 You know, a research chemical supply company.

00:19:12.000 It's not supposed to be provided to humans.

00:19:14.000 Now, I'm certainly not attributing this to you, but there were rumors, this was one discussion, was that one of the possible ways he could have ingested this, and let's be very kind, John likes to party.

00:19:28.000 Okay?

00:19:29.000 One of the things about partying is people do cocaine.

00:19:31.000 One of the things about cocaine is sometimes cocaine is cut with creatine.

00:19:35.000 One of the things about creatine is oftentimes you're buying cheap creatine.

00:19:38.000 That's one of the things that we've had with Onnit.

00:19:41.000 Onnits, our products are all third-party verified.

00:19:44.000 But in the initial goings, when we tried different manufacturers, especially for AlphaBrain, we found there were other trace elements that were in AlphaBrain that weren't supposed to be in there.

00:19:54.000 And it's because of the vats that they mix these things up with.

00:19:58.000 And one of the things that we had heard was that creatine oftentimes is made in the same place where they might be making oral terinobol, they might be making anabol, they might be making a bunch of different things, and trace amounts of this stuff can get into the creatine.

00:20:13.000 They use creatine to cut cocaine with.

00:20:16.000 Is this possible, or am I just...

00:20:18.000 Yeah, it's absolutely a theory.

00:20:21.000 I can't sit here and say that happened, but I will.

00:20:23.000 But you have heard similar things.

00:20:24.000 I have heard similar things.

00:20:25.000 I know for a fact, based on my previous career, I worked closely with the DEA. I was with the FDA. I worked cases involving street distribution of recreational drugs, including cocaine.

00:20:36.000 I know for a fact that creatine is one of the most common substances that cocaine is cut with because of a similar look, similar color, similar feel.

00:20:46.000 So getting back to McLaren's arbitration decision, I mean, this is a publicly available record, so I'm not saying anything new.

00:20:53.000 But McLaren addresses at least John's lifestyle around this time.

00:20:58.000 And he says the athlete openly admitted to USADA that prior to and for a period of time after the reporting of his second adverse analytical finding on July 28, 2017, the athlete used illicit so-called street drugs, including cocaine.

00:21:12.000 Now, for me to sit here and say, hey, that's where it came from, I don't know that.

00:21:17.000 the time period he's talking about?

00:21:21.000 That prior to and for a period of time after the reporting of a second adverse analytical finding on July 27, 2017, admitted.

00:21:30.000 So before that test and sometime after.

00:21:34.000 Okay.

00:21:35.000 So, does that make sense, though?

00:21:37.000 If it's cut, if that's where the source of it is, does it make sense that that would show up as a long-term metabolite?

00:21:45.000 Doesn't it need a long time in the body to digest, or do we not know enough about the window of time?

00:21:52.000 Yeah, I don't know if we know enough about the window of time.

00:21:55.000 My theory in looking at it is, even if there's a small amount Of the oral torinobol in that.

00:22:03.000 It's going to, for a period of time, show that parent compound at a small picogram amount and the short and mid-term metabolites in the small picogram amount.

00:22:12.000 We have never seen those in the history of John's testing.

00:22:16.000 It's only this long-term metabolite.

00:22:18.000 So that may be indication that it occurred maybe even prior to what we're talking about here.

00:22:24.000 Is it something that could be accentuated in some way by the weight cutting process?

00:22:30.000 I absolutely think that could be a factor.

00:22:33.000 There are studies, not necessarily with this, but another substance, clomiphene.

00:22:39.000 And look, while I'm cautioning people...

00:22:41.000 To be careful about comparing different substances.

00:22:44.000 The commonality between clomiphene, which there are multiple clinical studies on because it is approved for use to be distributed to humans, and oral terinobol is they're both chlorinated.

00:22:56.000 So they both contain a chlorine atom on the molecule.

00:22:59.000 And there is a recently published study on clomiphene and its excretion rates.

00:23:07.000 Again, for those at home that want to look it up, The study was published in the Endocrine Society publication.

00:23:13.000 It's peer-reviewed.

00:23:14.000 The name of it is HPT Access Effects in Urinary Detection Following Clomiphene Administration in Males.

00:23:21.000 So what they did is they basically, you know, got a group of males, gave them a one-month cycle of clomiphene, you know, I think 25 milligrams a day, and then had them get off.

00:23:35.000 And then continue to look at their urine up to 261 days after.

00:23:40.000 And what you saw and what you see in this study is that pulsing effect.

00:23:45.000 So, you know, I'm looking at some of the study subjects here.

00:23:49.000 Subject 1. On day 121, still showed 147 picograms of clomiphene.

00:23:55.000 Day 128 showed 174 picograms.

00:23:59.000 Day 135 shows nothing.

00:24:02.000 He's below the minimum reporting limit.

00:24:06.000 And then day 149, he's back up to 236. There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 out of, I think, 12 subjects in that study that showed this pulsing effect of this chlorinated substance coming and going.

00:24:24.000 Again, it's different than oral terinobol, but it has that common factor of being chlorinated.

00:24:30.000 In this study, they do talk about a fat tissue called the adipose tissue.

00:24:39.000 This is fat that surrounds the internal organs.

00:24:42.000 It's one of the last things that the body burns when it's starving itself and going to fat.

00:24:47.000 It protects those organs.

00:24:48.000 But yeah, you look at these extreme weight gains and cuts that the UFC athlete goes through, I don't think you're going to find possibly another human subject anywhere that goes through putting weight on, cutting up.

00:25:02.000 Other than Olympic wrestling.

00:25:03.000 Maybe, but I don't think Olympic wrestling matches with an MMA fighter goes through, at least in my experience over these three or four years, talking to those in the Olympic world.

00:25:13.000 I think we're at the extreme, and it's something obviously we've talked about before We're trying to curtail, but there's clearly never been a study for anybody who dehydrates and rehydrates themselves to the extent that some of our athletes do.

00:25:28.000 You could never find...

00:25:29.000 There would never be anybody with any ethics that would support a study because some of that dehydration exceeds World Health Organization standards.

00:25:37.000 So there's no studies out there on this stuff.

00:25:40.000 But clearly, looking from afar, I'd say that it likely has some impact over what's being released by this adipose tissue.

00:25:48.000 We should certainly talk about that in the future, about the weight cutting aspect of it.

00:25:52.000 But this adipose tissue loss at extreme weight cuts could potentially be the reason why this stuff is excreting itself.

00:26:01.000 It's definitely a theory out there.

00:26:02.000 What about microdosing?

00:26:04.000 So here's the thing with microdosing.

00:26:07.000 Microdosing is done with endogenous substances.

00:26:10.000 Only?

00:26:11.000 Well, I mean, someone could try it with something else, but the reason you microdose with endogenous substances is they're already produced in the body.

00:26:20.000 Right.

00:26:20.000 So the theory of, okay, I'm going to microdose oral terenobol.

00:26:24.000 Well, oral terenobol is still producing these short-term and long-term metabolites.

00:26:29.000 In theory, whether you're taking 100 milligrams or 1 milligram of oral terenobol, Those excretion rates of those metabolites are still going to be consistent.

00:26:40.000 They're going to be in a much smaller level.

00:26:42.000 Is there a way to bypass those excretion rates?

00:26:44.000 Is there a way to mask that in some way?

00:26:46.000 I'm not aware of any.

00:26:48.000 Go ahead.

00:26:50.000 I'm sorry.

00:26:50.000 The only study we have is Gregory...

00:26:52.000 Correct.

00:26:53.000 That's it.

00:26:53.000 Correct.

00:26:54.000 But just taking it from a common sense approach, it's certainly those that know about microdosing know that you microdose with endogenous substances, things that are already appearing in the body.

00:27:05.000 So your body knows what to do with them.

00:27:07.000 Knows what to do, and you're fooling, you know, not only are these metabolizing and there's no metabolites of them, but you could also be fooling the biological passport.

00:27:15.000 That's the concern, I think, and why people microdose.

00:27:19.000 So USAD is looking not only testing for specific substances, but are testosterone to epitestosterone ratios going up?

00:27:27.000 They're looking at blood values, how many young red blood cells, how many mature red blood cells.

00:27:32.000 So microdosing in those two areas wouldn't set off alarms in the biological passport world.

00:27:38.000 I've never heard personally of microdosing of exogenous substances that are not found in the body.

00:27:45.000 Microdosing, in my understanding, is done with things that are endogenous.

00:27:48.000 And again, for people that are not familiar with this terminology, we're just talking about microdosing, performance-enhancing drugs.

00:27:55.000 Because microdosing in today's world is a very common thing with mushrooms and LSD and a lot of other things.

00:28:01.000 Right.

00:28:01.000 I mean, I saw a ton of microdosing in the cycling world.

00:28:04.000 That was testosterone, EPO, HGH, all those natural occurring in the body.

00:28:11.000 And so they don't produce any really red flag metabolites.

00:28:16.000 If you do them at very, very small levels, the parent will clear quickly, not produce any metabolites, and will not throw off the biological passport analysis.

00:28:26.000 When Victor Conte came out with Clear and all that stuff with Balco, they were fooling people.

00:28:34.000 One of the things we've talked about before is that it's a constant race to try to keep up with more advanced cheaters.

00:28:42.000 It is.

00:28:43.000 And you know what's interesting in this?

00:28:44.000 I mean, if I were to talk to you, and maybe the first time we did talk a couple years ago, it's come a long way from then.

00:28:50.000 But clearly, if I were to talk to you 15, 16, 17 years ago, when I got my start in the anti-doping world, I would have told you definitively, the testing is way behind what's being used out there.

00:29:02.000 They were able to test to multiple nanogram limits.

00:29:07.000 That's as far down as we can go.

00:29:09.000 Now they can go down to single-digit picogram.

00:29:12.000 There's another professional sports league out there that recently had a one-picogram M3 metabolite case.

00:29:19.000 I mean, do the math coming down from four or five nanograms, which used to be the lower limit, now to one picogram.

00:29:27.000 10,000, 20,000 times, I am almost under the theory that the pendulum has swung maybe a little bit too far in the other direction.

00:29:37.000 And that certainly is part of my job to the UFC. Look, I want to catch every intentional cheater that's out there.

00:29:43.000 I want to make sure we have a rock-solid program, use all the latest and greatest techniques to do it, but I also want to keep an eye on it to make sure it's being administrated fairly.

00:29:55.000 And when you're getting down to detection of one single-digit picograms, I have a concern that what kind of level of sensitivity are we talking about?

00:30:05.000 Are we going to talk about environmental contamination where you walk through a room and somebody has just opened a container of something and there's minuscule powders in the air?

00:30:15.000 There are documented cases that some of the regularly prescribed prescription drugs, specifically diuretics, Are getting in water supplies in some areas.

00:30:25.000 You know, you get a lot of old people on them that flush their old pills down the toilet. 0.87

00:30:30.000 There's documented cases of it getting into the water supply and being detectable at that picogram level.

00:30:37.000 So you've got to be really, really careful about that.

00:30:40.000 And I think, you know, this case exemplifies that USADA and really the World Anti-Doping Agency world and community are aware of that.

00:30:50.000 You know, with greater sensitivity and testing, in my opinion, makes greater responsibility to be objective and look fairly at what really we're doing here when we're detecting in that small amount.

00:31:03.000 But this test of John's, where he's testing for the same level of picograms today as he was in July of 2017, is it safe to say that this is unprecedented?

00:31:18.000 Repeat that again?

00:31:19.000 That John's test for the same levels of picograms of these metabolites in 2018 that he was testing for in 2017, this is unprecedented.

00:31:31.000 No, the answer is no.

00:31:32.000 So maybe unprecedented in the UFC program, but what What the United States Anti-Doping Agency did over these last five or six months is they reached out to the science community outside the scope of the UFC. They reached out to other professional sports organizations,

00:31:48.000 they reached out to other WADA laboratories, and what they were seeing was multiple instances of this pulsing effect, where over time you would see a reading, the next test it would go away, And the next time you'd see that reading again, maybe back up to or even above what that was.

00:32:06.000 Correct.

00:32:07.000 Yes.

00:32:07.000 And you see that in the clomiphene study here, too.

00:32:10.000 I mean, almost 260. They stopped the study.

00:32:13.000 It was still appearing in picogram levels in some subjects, and they stopped the study at 261 days.

00:32:19.000 And you see those numbers I was reading to.

00:32:22.000 You see this one subject at 174 days.

00:32:25.000 He's negative the next time, and then he pops up in the 200s after.

00:32:29.000 So it's actually more than the time before.

00:32:32.000 Again, apples and oranges, different substances, but the commonality here is chlorinated substance.

00:32:37.000 Chlorine-based.

00:32:38.000 So is it safe to say that this is an emerging science and that we're still...

00:32:43.000 Learning and understanding this as we go along.

00:32:47.000 Absolutely.

00:32:48.000 It's still very young.

00:32:49.000 Look, the first, you know, the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles were established, the first drug testing laboratory by Dr. Catlin.

00:32:58.000 So really, you know, in the scope of science, going back to the earliest days then, you're talking about, you know, what?

00:33:05.000 30 years, 30, 35 years.

00:33:08.000 Again, when I started off in this 16 or 17 years, the science still wasn't good.

00:33:13.000 They were unable to detect anything in the picogram level.

00:33:17.000 Again, for reference, very interesting.

00:33:20.000 So the WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agencies, accredits laboratories across the world.

00:33:26.000 And they have certain standards that those laboratories must meet in order to retain that accreditation and keep that accreditation.

00:33:34.000 So they have a technical document called the minimum required performance levels of their laboratory.

00:33:40.000 So what they tell the laboratories is you must detect these substances down to this amount.

00:33:46.000 If you can't get them down to this amount, then you can't have an accreditation from WADA. So the class of substances that oral terinobol would be in, which would be other anabolic agents, the required minimum level that they must detect to is only two nanograms.

00:34:07.000 So, look, WADA even says, as long as you can get to two nanograms, you can retain our accreditation.

00:34:12.000 Well, what's happening is in arms race in these laboratories, they're saying, well, two is the minimum standard, but I can get down further.

00:34:19.000 And, you know, these are private entities that, you know, are looking for customers.

00:34:25.000 So to be able to reach out and say, well, even though WADA tells us two is as low as we need to go, we can go down to one picogram.

00:34:32.000 I think in a sense, maybe you need to slow the reins on that a little bit that we're getting too far and too sensitive of a level of detection when it comes to implementing a fair program, because you can't determine where one picogram came from.

00:34:48.000 You could be breathing, again, contaminated air, drinking contaminated water.

00:34:52.000 It gets real dangerous when you get down that low.

00:34:55.000 Now, how does this reflect on past suspensions?

00:34:59.000 This is, when you deal with something like, let's bring up Frank Mir, for example.

00:35:03.000 Didn't Frank Mir also test for oral turn of ball?

00:35:07.000 Okay, I want to get back to Frank Mir, but let's go back to John.

00:35:10.000 Okay.

00:35:10.000 And this instance and why USADA has come out and said, look, this is not a violation.

00:35:15.000 So if you go to the WADA, the World Anti-Doping Code, there's a section 10.7.4.1.

00:35:23.000 Our UFC program basically mirrors that.

00:35:27.000 And we're bringing that up on the screen there.

00:35:29.000 So for purposes of imposing sanctions under 10.7, an anti-doping rule violation will only be considered a second violation if the anti-doping organization can establish the athlete or other person committed the second anti-doping rule violation after the athlete or other person received notice pursuant to Article 7, etc.

00:35:49.000 This is what's known as a double jeopardy clause.

00:35:53.000 Right.

00:35:53.000 So what it means is a guy tests positive for something, and if he's test positive for the exact same substance that is still in his system a year later, or whatever the amount of time is, you don't include that as a new positive test.

00:36:06.000 One more thing has to happen.

00:36:07.000 Science has to determine that there hasn't been a re-administration.

00:36:11.000 So test positive for the same substance, and science says, based on all the numbers we see, there's no evidence of any re-administration.

00:36:20.000 And the non-evidence of the re-administration is the lack of short-term and medium-term metabolites.

00:36:26.000 Bingo.

00:36:26.000 Never, ever in John's...

00:36:28.000 Is there an issue, though, that this is only one test, that Gregory Wachenko's test is the only study that showed that these medium and short-term metabolites exist?

00:36:39.000 It's the only study, but I think then, if there's only one study, you have to go to anecdotal evidence, right?

00:36:45.000 Why don't we just do studies on UFC employees? 0.97

00:36:48.000 Get Sean Shelby to take Oral Terenabol.

00:36:51.000 He'll do it.

00:36:53.000 Oral Terenabol is illegal to distribute.

00:36:55.000 Let's do it in Mexico. 0.95

00:36:57.000 In any country throughout the world, it's illegal.

00:36:59.000 Every country.

00:37:00.000 But I thought Mexico, they just let you do whatever you want to do. 0.96

00:37:02.000 I don't know.

00:37:03.000 Maybe we can look into that, but Shelby may be up for that. 1.00

00:37:06.000 I don't know.

00:37:06.000 That's the reason for living there.

00:37:07.000 I have a problem with that in that we're relying on one study.

00:37:13.000 This seems to me to be like a critical thing that could affect...

00:37:17.000 I mean, we're hoping and we're putting faith in this study that this is the only way that these metabolites express themselves.

00:37:26.000 Is it possible...

00:37:29.000 That these, like you see with the pulsing effect, that you see positive effects and negative, or positive results and negative results, that these short-term and medium-term metabolites don't always express themselves, and that what we're considering a long-term metabolite could, in fact, just be a metabolite.

00:37:49.000 Yeah, I mean, I guess it's possible, but are you going to sanction an athlete again because, you know, potentially it's possible in the theory of the universe?

00:37:58.000 You can't do that.

00:37:59.000 Let me read to you real quick what these experts came out at in terms of re-administration.

00:38:05.000 Dr. Daniel Eichner runs the Salt Lake City.

00:38:09.000 It's called the Sports Medicine Research Testing Laboratory, or SMIRTLE. They're one of two water-accredited laboratories in the United States, the other one being at UCLA. Again, one of the most respected minds in anti-doping, PhD, chemist.

00:38:25.000 His answer in terms of re-administration was this, and you very rarely see scientists at his level talk in absolutes.

00:38:35.000 There you go.

00:38:36.000 And here he says, there is no evidence that DHCMT has been re-administered.

00:38:42.000 That's in writing to us, so very definitive on that.

00:38:46.000 Usada is science director.

00:38:48.000 Now, Daniel is independent even of Usada.

00:38:51.000 So those who criticize, hey, Usada's in bed with the UFC. Daniel Eichner doesn't work for Usada.

00:38:56.000 He runs an independent laboratory.

00:38:58.000 Usada sends samples there.

00:39:00.000 The NFL sends samples there.

00:39:02.000 Major League Baseball sends samples there.

00:39:04.000 The NCAA. He's independent.

00:39:06.000 Owns his own laboratory.

00:39:09.000 USADA also put out a letter to us in writing, upon careful consideration of the very low concentration of the DHCMT long-term metabolite in Mr. Jones' sample and taking into account the human pharmacokinetic characteristics of this particular long-term anabolic steroid metabolite,

00:39:28.000 Based on data to which USADA has access to and in consultation with scientific experts, some of whose opinions are enclosed, USADA has concluded, consistent with prior residual amounts detected in Mr. Jones' sample, that the presence of DHCMT long-term metabolite is consistent with residual amounts from exposure prior to July 28, 2017. Look, I'm not an expert.

00:39:56.000 I don't profess to be.

00:39:57.000 My background's in finance and accounting.

00:40:00.000 I traced the money back in the old days, but I know who those experts are out there in the world, and these are them.

00:40:08.000 By putting these things in writing, putting their reputations on the line now and forever going forward.

00:40:14.000 They're never going to do something like that because the UFC pays USADA to administer our program or because Jon Jones is a popular fighter and they want to see him fight this weekend.

00:40:24.000 That's just not the way this world works.

00:40:27.000 Of course.

00:40:27.000 In fact, it works the opposite way.

00:40:29.000 There would be a great benefit if they could catch him cheating.

00:40:31.000 Absolutely.

00:40:33.000 And historically, experts like this are very, very conservative when it comes to talking in absolutes like this.

00:40:40.000 They don't normally do it.

00:40:42.000 In all fairness, the real question is guys like you and me, because we are UFC employees.

00:40:47.000 So are we going to handle this fairly?

00:40:49.000 I get that argument.

00:40:50.000 Of course.

00:40:50.000 I do too.

00:40:51.000 And I saw that left and right, that, hey, Jeff and Joe are paid by the UFC. Of course they're going to come out in this way.

00:40:56.000 But look, all these things that I'm reciting today— I would never do that in regards to cheating.

00:41:01.000 I wouldn't either.

00:41:01.000 I side with the UFC on a lot of things because I support the sport and I want it to excel.

00:41:06.000 I don't side ever with cheating.

00:41:09.000 If I think that there's some way, somehow, that someone is given an unfair advantage and this is somehow being covered up, I would rather not work for them.

00:41:18.000 Joe, my last 17 years of my career, everything that I've worked for is to protect the rights of clean athletes and to eradicate cheating from the sport.

00:41:29.000 I can't tell you how strongly I feel about that.

00:41:32.000 Sport's given me everything in my life.

00:41:35.000 My dad was a high school basketball coach.

00:41:37.000 It paid for my college and scholarships.

00:41:40.000 At least the good characteristics in me, I can all trace directly to sports and sports.

00:41:46.000 Entering into the equation the issues of breaking the rules, the issues of the health and safety aspects when you have young, and I talk to many parents whose kids use steroids because they saw the professional athletes doing.

00:41:58.000 Entering that into the body when your hormonal levels are already out of control is very, very dangerous, both short and long term.

00:42:06.000 I can't tell you how passionate I am about this issue.

00:42:09.000 And those out there that are saying that I'm corrupt, that my reputation is out the window, I would never, ever, in a million years...

00:42:17.000 You can't listen to those people.

00:42:18.000 I mean, obviously you have, but you can't listen to those people because they want to find things wrong.

00:42:27.000 One of the things that I've said about you is you're a guy who loves to catch people cheating.

00:42:31.000 You like it.

00:42:31.000 You enjoy it.

00:42:32.000 No, that's not true, man.

00:42:33.000 You do.

00:42:34.000 I don't...

00:42:34.000 Come on, if someone is cheating and you catch them, tell me you don't like that.

00:42:38.000 In the UFC program, now with what we've established here, absolutely.

00:42:42.000 Back in the old days, and we've talked about this, look, when you had in baseball or in cycling...

00:42:48.000 No testing going on.

00:42:49.000 Literally, the organizations were looking in the other direction.

00:42:52.000 I've often said, look, I don't agree with what they did, but there's a portion of me, and that's why I think a lot of these athletes respected me and shared that information.

00:43:00.000 There's a portion of me that said, I don't agree with what you did.

00:43:04.000 I'd like to think I wouldn't have made the same decision, but I damn well understand why you did this.

00:43:08.000 You're fighting for millions of dollars in contracts.

00:43:11.000 You know your teammates are doing it. 0.98

00:43:12.000 You know, your competitors are doing it, and you know your professional sports organization doesn't give a shit because of the weakness of the testing program or total lack thereof. 1.00

00:43:22.000 So in instances like that, I never came away saying, that guy's an idiot or an asshole for choosing. 1.00

00:43:27.000 I came away saying, I kind of get why he did it. 1.00

00:43:30.000 If I was 21 or 22 years old and immature, I may have made the same decision.

00:43:34.000 Now, coming to our program here, where you have an organization that cares very much, that spends multi-million dollars a year, this program has done nothing but cost the UFC money.

00:43:46.000 It costs us money on how we implement the program.

00:43:48.000 It costs us money on canceling fights.

00:43:51.000 Anybody who thinks moving this fight to California is at a financial benefit to the UFC is crazy.

00:43:57.000 We're taking a bath on this one.

00:43:59.000 People really do need to understand that the UFC decided themselves, they self-imposed USADA's sanctioning of fights.

00:44:08.000 Correct.

00:44:08.000 Nobody forced us to do that.

00:44:09.000 So this was a big step in the right direction of trying to make the sport cleaner because we recognized that, first of all, there was some legal stuff with the testosterone replacement therapy that just threw everything out of whack, where it was essentially It was sanctioned cheating.

00:44:26.000 I mean, let's be honest about what that was.

00:44:28.000 It was clearly, in my understanding, being manipulated.

00:44:31.000 Yes.

00:44:31.000 Very easy to manipulate when you get permission to use any prohibited substance like that.

00:44:36.000 And we went from that to unbelievably strict protocols, and now what you're seeing is, you're seeing, first of all, we saw a radical change in the physiques of some fighters, where we did have some suspicions, and those suspicions, at least in my eyes, had been confirmed.

00:44:53.000 And now we're seeing the good side of this with what, in your estimation, might have been moved over into a position where, okay, now it's getting a little bit ridiculous in terms of what we can detect and what is causing fights to be canceled.

00:45:13.000 Exactly.

00:45:14.000 So, interestingly enough, the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, their next code revision is 2021. And so they regularly put out, hey, what are the issues going forward that we want to address?

00:45:26.000 And one of the major issues is potentially establishing thresholds for these low-level substances that keep appearing, DHCMT being one of them.

00:45:38.000 Osterine being one of them.

00:45:40.000 And so the idea that WADA is looking at and has a working group of worldwide experts is, hey, if something gets reported back at under 50 picograms, all the evidence is showing, more likely than not, this is from a very low-level contaminant issue.

00:45:56.000 We've never seen an issue of a microdosing or an intentional use that's reached that level.

00:46:00.000 Why are the labs even reporting at We're good to go.

00:46:24.000 Fairness due process in a program is just as important as the strength and comprehensiveness of that program.

00:46:32.000 You'll lose faith in your athletes.

00:46:34.000 You could have the strongest loophole-free program in the world, but you start implementing things unfairly, you'll lose faith just as much as if you had a bunch of loopholes in the program.

00:46:45.000 It's got to be fair.

00:46:46.000 Are you aware of the female skier that tested positive because of lip balm?

00:46:52.000 Yeah, I vaguely recall about that.

00:46:54.000 Someone else used a lip balm before her? 0.98

00:46:56.000 No, no, no, no.

00:46:58.000 It was a lip balm for sunburn.

00:47:01.000 It was for sunburnt lips, and it had some ridiculously small trace amount.

00:47:07.000 Was it Osterine?

00:47:08.000 Her name is Joberg? 1.00

00:47:14.000 I'm trying to remember her name.

00:47:15.000 Well, there was the cocaine kissing defense, which actually won an arbitration, so something similar.

00:47:20.000 Somebody tested positive for low-level metabolites of cocaine and basically said, look, hey, whether that was good or not, but...

00:47:29.000 The arbitrator bought it and the science shows, hey, that is a possibility.

00:47:33.000 The detection levels are so low, if you kiss somebody who had just done cocaine, they're now able to detect at those levels in the person that kissed that person.

00:47:44.000 That makes sense.

00:47:45.000 Did you find this woman?

00:47:46.000 Yeah, there's a doping label on the label, which is why they gave her a penalty, apparently. 1.00

00:47:51.000 Oh, I see.

00:47:51.000 Okay.

00:47:52.000 What is the... 0.99

00:47:54.000 Who the fuck's reading labels on lip balm? 0.99

00:47:56.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

00:47:57.000 See, that's how crazy it's gotten.

00:48:00.000 I mean, all our athletes know when they're using a creatine or a protein or whatever, I think most of them are pretty careful right now, but...

00:48:07.000 To tell them, hey, you need to read your lip balm and your deodorant.

00:48:11.000 I mean, what level are we getting to here in these levels of detection?

00:48:16.000 So she, 29-year-old star of Norway's powerhouse squad of skiing, cross-country skiing, tested positive for an anabolic agent listed in the contents of a treatment for sunburn.

00:48:27.000 This could be similar in some ways to what Chad Mendes tested positive for, for something for psoriasis, correct?

00:48:35.000 Chad Mendes has obvious psoriasis.

00:48:37.000 You can see it on his body.

00:48:39.000 He's talked about it pretty openly and he used some sort of a cream and accepted his penalty.

00:48:44.000 He wasn't aware that this cream had something, some type of a steroid into it.

00:48:48.000 Yeah, I'd seen him publicly state that.

00:48:50.000 Now, he chose not to present a defense or go to arbitration, so I haven't seen anything in detail to give you a knowledgeable opinion on that.

00:48:58.000 Yeah, he did.

00:48:59.000 So let's get back to the Frank Mir case.

00:49:02.000 Frank Mir tested positive.

00:49:04.000 Was it also oral terinabol?

00:49:05.000 Also, same thing, long-term metabolite of oral terinabol.

00:49:08.000 Here's the difference.

00:49:09.000 Frank Mir, the same as John Jones his first time through, was sanctioned.

00:49:16.000 John didn't get off the first time this showed up in his system.

00:49:19.000 He was looking at potential for years, went to arbitration, presented evidence, enacted some other clauses in the policy that reduced his sanction.

00:49:28.000 What does that mean?

00:49:30.000 Well, one of them was substantial assistance, where he assisted USADA in some way, shape, or form, and he got a reduction for doing that.

00:49:39.000 Assisted in what way?

00:49:41.000 So I don't know.

00:49:42.000 And this is the exact reason why I do this.

00:49:44.000 So I insulate myself from that interaction between USADA and the athlete.

00:49:50.000 They are the sole adjudicator in this.

00:49:52.000 They do not, you know, get me on the phone and say, hey, we're thinking about going this way.

00:49:57.000 They adjudicate completely in a vacuum.

00:49:59.000 And you're, just so people know, your title is...

00:50:03.000 Safety, health and safety?

00:50:05.000 Athlete Health and Performance.

00:50:06.000 Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance.

00:50:08.000 So you no longer work for USADA? I've never worked for USADA. That's a big misconception.

00:50:13.000 A lot of our fighters think that.

00:50:14.000 I've never worked for USADA. I was a federal agent for 22 and a half years.

00:50:19.000 The latter part of my career got involved with all these PED distribution cases.

00:50:26.000 2015, Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White, through a mutual friend, contacted me and said, hey, would you come out and Kind of talk to us.

00:50:33.000 We're contemplating maybe putting our own program together.

00:50:36.000 We've had some recent high-profile positives.

00:50:39.000 So I came out to Vegas, talked with them, and a week later I get a phone call asking if I want to come work for them and kind of implement this new program.

00:50:46.000 But I've never been an employee of USADA. Okay, so that's good to know because that's been stated by some public figures that you used to work for USADA and now you work for the UFC. Never worked for USADA. And that you're a shill.

00:50:58.000 That's one of my favorite words.

00:51:01.000 So you never worked for USADA. You brought USADA to the UFC or communicated with USADA and facilitated this agreement?

00:51:10.000 Correct.

00:51:11.000 So I never worked for USADA. I did work very closely with USADA. So USADA, when I first started these series of investigations back in 2002, look, I knew all about how to work a heroin distribution organization, a cocaine distribution organization, methamphetamine organization.

00:51:27.000 But when it came to performance-enhancing drugs, there was no class that myself or really any other federal agent or law enforcement agent goes through surrounding distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.

00:51:39.000 So I was examining the discarded garbage of Balco every week when they put it out to the curb.

00:51:46.000 Began seeing notes, wrappers, all these substances.

00:51:49.000 I had no idea what these things were.

00:51:51.000 I didn't know the difference between testosterone, epitestosterone, erythropoietin, HGH. I knew nothing.

00:51:58.000 So what I did is I figured out who those experts were, who were the people that could very quickly get me up to speed on what I was looking at.

00:52:06.000 Dr. Catlin, who ran the UCLA Olympic lab, was one of the first, and he started kind of walking me through this.

00:52:13.000 He put me in touch with USADA, and they began educating me as well.

00:52:18.000 So over the course of those investigations, I got a lot from them in terms of educating on these substances.

00:52:25.000 They were bringing some of their cooperating witnesses to me, and then we'd go off and running on criminal investigations, but never worked for them.

00:52:34.000 So, USADA, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way they would work would be very compartmentalized.

00:52:40.000 Like, they would not specifically communicate with you on all of the details of this?

00:52:45.000 Correct, and they don't now.

00:52:47.000 I mean, that's the independence aspect.

00:52:49.000 I don't, as these deliberations are going on, what they're looking at, I don't know.

00:52:55.000 Cooperation, just for me, to be frank, in my eyes, would mean that something was done purposely, illegally, and this person had some knowledge of purposeful, illegal activity, and that they would somehow communicate this to facilitate some sort of catching of someone involved in a criminal act or an act of cheating.

00:53:17.000 Yeah, that would make sense to me too.

00:53:19.000 So that would be what we're talking about.

00:53:21.000 USADA would allow John a shorter suspension if he actively participated in helping them catch people that were cheating.

00:53:29.000 That's the understanding.

00:53:31.000 That would be implied.

00:53:32.000 I don't know to what level that was done.

00:53:34.000 I don't know if it was that or if it was, hey, here's how this drug works in more general.

00:53:40.000 I don't know what it was.

00:53:42.000 But that would mean that John would have to know about cheating.

00:53:46.000 If you're saying, like, this is how this drug works, this is how I used it, I mean, that would mean his initial defense would have to be thrown out the window because it wasn't an accident.

00:53:55.000 Well, I mean, I don't know about that.

00:53:57.000 If he knew something separate from, you know, that he wasn't doing, but someone else, yeah.

00:54:01.000 And again, I don't want anybody to reach that conclusion.

00:54:04.000 I have no idea what his substantial assistance entailed.

00:54:08.000 None.

00:54:09.000 Right.

00:54:10.000 But that's a slippery slope.

00:54:11.000 It is a slippery slope.

00:54:12.000 And look, transparency is important in any program, But, you know, only to a certain level.

00:54:19.000 Look, if you were transparent about what everyone's, you know, cooperation or substantial assistance was, and the whole world knew about it, you're never going to get anybody after that coming in and cooperating.

00:54:31.000 I saw this definitely on the criminal side with, you know, informants.

00:54:34.000 You don't, that's not something that you want to be transparent about or disclose.

00:54:39.000 Right.

00:54:40.000 But there's going to be a bunch of people that have a real issue with that.

00:54:43.000 The idea that John Jones, one of the greatest fighters of all time, is actually working as an informant.

00:54:49.000 I mean, it's listed in McLaren's ruling that that was one of the reasons for the mitigating factor and the reduction, but I don't...

00:54:57.000 Again, Joe, I'm telling you, I know nothing about it.

00:55:00.000 Nothing about it.

00:55:01.000 It's been stated.

00:55:02.000 We know what it is.

00:55:03.000 Okay.

00:55:03.000 Or we know that it's a thing.

00:55:05.000 When it comes to John's initial test where he was sanctioned and was suspended for a determined period of time, Frank Mir also...

00:55:18.000 Was sanctioned for a determined period of time as well.

00:55:21.000 He was two years.

00:55:22.000 John was shorter than that because John cooperated in a bunch of other deals.

00:55:26.000 Two things.

00:55:27.000 He not only cooperated, he went to arbitration and put on a defense.

00:55:30.000 He put on a defense that, look, the evidence here shows no intentional ingestion of it.

00:55:35.000 In fact, McLaren gave him a further reduction based on there was no evidence that this was intentionally done.

00:55:43.000 Frank Mir didn't put on any, he had every right to go to arbitration, put on his own offense, didn't do that.

00:55:49.000 What about Josh Barnett?

00:55:50.000 Josh Barnett, you know, completely different set of facts.

00:55:53.000 His came from a contaminated supplement.

00:55:55.000 It was a different substance.

00:55:57.000 He went to an arbitration hearing.

00:56:00.000 The arbitrator ruled with Josh and said, yep, you know, based on where we are now.

00:56:08.000 I think that's a good example of the checks and balances in place here.

00:56:17.000 You've got me overseeing the program, taking a look at how these things come out.

00:56:21.000 You've got the ability from the athlete to go to McLaren's group and And judge, you know, the set of facts.

00:56:28.000 And in that case, McLaren's group said, USADA, I think maybe you overreached a little bit here.

00:56:33.000 And I believe Josh and Josh is, you know, basically time served.

00:56:37.000 So, you know, you want to see them get it perfect, right every time.

00:56:42.000 But, you know, the reality in the real world is that doesn't necessarily happen.

00:56:45.000 And that's why you have these checks and balances available.

00:56:48.000 Um, Josh Barnett's take on the matter is that they tried to paint him as guilty even though he was not and that he feels like he definitely got a bad deal and that he was labeled as someone who was taking this substance.

00:57:02.000 He was suspended for a long period of time while he was going through this and although he was found not guilty, that he feels like not enough emphasis was...

00:57:12.000 Put into establishing that he was not guilty and that, you know, he feels like they chased him down over something that he didn't do.

00:57:20.000 Yeah, I mean, well, here's what he did do is he used a supplement that if he would have listened to anything that we educate on, that USADA sends out regular reminders our fighters are required on a quarterly basis to go through videos in their whereabouts filing that deals with these issues.

00:57:36.000 If he would have followed any of that advice when it came to his supplement choices, he would have never chosen the supplement he used.

00:57:43.000 When I heard about that supplement and what was on the label and how it was marketed, I said, okay, well, that's likely the candidate of where it came from.

00:57:52.000 So, I mean, the analysis would be, hey, that pool, be careful.

00:57:56.000 There are sharks swimming in that pool.

00:57:58.000 They can eat you.

00:57:59.000 And the person jumps in the water anyway saying, look, I didn't want to get eaten by a shark, but a shark comes up and ate them.

00:58:05.000 it's like, hey, we told you that this was the case.

00:58:08.000 You didn't follow that.

00:58:09.000 Now, there also needs to be a differentiation between someone who's intentionally cheating and someone that just makes a naive supplement choice.

00:58:20.000 There needs to be a differentiation between that, and there was in that case.

00:58:24.000 Josh didn't get the full penalty of what that substance would have rendered.

00:58:30.000 But he did have to go through a long period of time where he was unable to fight.

00:58:34.000 He did, but again, he had the prohibited substance in his body.

00:58:39.000 USADA has to look at, hey, even though you didn't do that on purpose, did that give you a performance-enhancing benefit?

00:58:46.000 Did it allow you to recover a little bit better?

00:58:48.000 Did it make you a little bit stronger?

00:58:50.000 And that's why those strict liability provisions are in there.

00:58:54.000 Otherwise, people would just take these prohibited supplements and say, oh, I didn't know it was an accident.

00:58:59.000 Exactly.

00:58:59.000 And meanwhile, they're getting a benefit from it.

00:59:01.000 Exactly.

00:59:01.000 So they have to have some sort of penalty in place.

00:59:04.000 I think so.

00:59:05.000 Now, I also think, again, there needs to be a differentiation between the intentional and non-intentional, and we do have that in our policy.

00:59:13.000 There are definitely mitigating factors available in our policy that if you didn't do a thing on purpose, you're not sanctioned.

00:59:20.000 Tim Means is a great example there.

00:59:22.000 So Tim Means used a relatively benign supplement.

00:59:25.000 It was a creatine.

00:59:26.000 Creatine, you know, generally doesn't have an issue as opposed to like testosterone booster supplements.

00:59:33.000 We tell our athletes, stay away from anything marketing as a testosterone booster.

00:59:38.000 It's one of the most common with contaminants or purposeful spikings. 0.94

00:59:43.000 Tim Means uses a creatine.

00:59:45.000 It had Osterine in it, a very small amount.

00:59:49.000 We found it in there.

00:59:50.000 You know, Osterine is a two-year sanction.

00:59:53.000 He got six months.

00:59:55.000 You know, so back relatively quickly.

00:59:57.000 Was the same thing with Yoel Romero?

00:59:59.000 So, correct.

01:00:01.000 Yoel Romero used a natural diuretic product that had a SARM in it.

01:00:06.000 In all these cases, not only does the prohibited substance need to show up in what the athlete has said they've used already, but to protect against making sure the athlete isn't purposely spiking it, USADA will go out on their own, on the market, independently procure hopefully the on the market, independently procure hopefully the same lot of product.

01:00:26.000 And in the case of Yoel and Tim, they were able to do that, test it completely independently of the athlete, determine what level the prohibited substance is in that.

01:00:35.000 Based on the interview with the athlete of how much did you use, when's the last time you used it relative to this test, do the science calculations just to make sure an athlete's not saying, well, I know this creatine has spiked with Osterine, so I'm going to go use Osterine.

01:00:49.000 And then I have a built-in excuse when I test positive for Osterine.

01:00:53.000 In order to be able to match contaminant levels with what's being excreted in the urine, you would literally have to have a PhD chemistry degree, and I'm not aware of any of our athletes having that.

01:01:03.000 It would be very, very difficult to do that.

01:01:05.000 And so these detection levels, again, we're talking about nanograms.

01:01:08.000 We're not talking about large quantities that would indicate...

01:01:11.000 Or picograms.

01:01:12.000 Picograms, okay.

01:01:12.000 Correct.

01:01:13.000 Now, why was this moved from Vegas to California?

01:01:23.000 And why did the California State Athletic Commission, why did they accept this fight taking place here?

01:01:30.000 And why did Vegas say no to it?

01:01:33.000 So...

01:01:34.000 Internally, UFC-wise, we first—in fact, Donna Marcolini, who you know who works with me— Shout out to Donna. 1.00

01:01:40.000 Exactly.

01:01:41.000 We're a two-person shop, and the woman's a hawk. 1.00

01:01:44.000 She's one of the hardest workers I know.

01:01:46.000 She's awesome. 0.83

01:01:47.000 She's taking a look at something that we have access to called the Clearinghouse, and it's basically a recording of all the tests on our athletes.

01:01:55.000 So we can get on there.

01:01:56.000 Somebody says, hey, how many times was John tested last quarter?

01:01:59.000 We can get on there and pull that up.

01:02:01.000 The public also has access to our testing records, not with a specificity that the Clearinghouse has, but the public can get on.

01:02:09.000 And you saw it on a weekly basis, updates how many tests an athlete's done.

01:02:15.000 So there's some guys out there on the Internet from the day one of the program have kept track of what week their numbers tick up.

01:02:22.000 So you can go find spreadsheets on the Internet, at least from a weekly basis of when our athletes were tested and how many times every week.

01:02:30.000 Crazy, huh?

01:02:32.000 So the Clearinghouse program is very specific.

01:02:35.000 We can get on there and see the actual date of the collection, and next to that we see negative, positive, or pending.

01:02:42.000 So Donna came to me late November, early December, saying, hey, I'm looking at John's tests, and I'm seeing pending still back from, I think it was maybe August, September.

01:02:54.000 You think something's going on here?

01:02:56.000 And of course I'm like, okay, well he's fighting pretty soon.

01:02:58.000 I hope not, but...

01:03:00.000 Let me reach out to USADA. So I reached out to them.

01:03:03.000 They said, we're working on something.

01:03:05.000 We're conducting a study.

01:03:07.000 We're talking to other professional sports leagues.

01:03:09.000 We're talking to the laboratories out there.

01:03:11.000 And don't have an answer for you now, but stand by.

01:03:14.000 So I think it was December 6th, they sent a letter to us.

01:03:19.000 And they sent a letter to the Nevada State Athletic Commission saying...

01:03:24.000 Just so you're aware, over the last six months, early in this six months, we've seen a re-emergence of this long-term metabolite in John's samples.

01:03:34.000 So when was this?

01:03:35.000 So this was early December, December 6th.

01:03:38.000 We and the Nevada Athletic Commission were notified.

01:03:41.000 You were notified, but the test was from previous?

01:03:44.000 Yeah, so these tests covered from August through November of 2018. Okay, so there's more than one test.

01:03:55.000 Several of them.

01:03:55.000 Oh, so more than one test showed this metabolite.

01:03:59.000 So what they said was August 9th, negative.

01:04:02.000 August 29th, eight picograms.

01:04:06.000 Eight.

01:04:06.000 September 18th.

01:04:07.000 Eight.

01:04:08.000 September 18th.

01:04:09.000 So, I mean, there's a good...

01:04:11.000 So he's negative on the 9th.

01:04:13.000 20 days later, so inside Rechenkov's 22-day window, he shows an 8 picogram, no short-term metabolites, no long-term, no parent.

01:04:23.000 No medium-term.

01:04:24.000 No medium, I'm sorry.

01:04:25.000 No medium, only long-term.

01:04:27.000 Thank you.

01:04:28.000 We then go to the 18th of September, 19 picograms.

01:04:33.000 And then that's followed by four negative tests.

01:04:36.000 September 21st.

01:04:38.000 October 2nd, October 11th, and November 14th.

01:04:42.000 So at this point, late November, early December, USADA says, okay, we've done our studying.

01:04:49.000 Those two low levels in August Are residual.

01:04:53.000 There's no evidence of any re-administration based on lack of short and medium term and parent.

01:04:59.000 Based on our consultation with other leagues, with these labs that are seeing this, we're calling this, this would be double jeopardy if we did them again.

01:05:07.000 Okay, so this is something that should be really emphasized because there's a lot of people that don't understand this.

01:05:11.000 This is not just this one test.

01:05:13.000 These are many tests that have been done over the course of John's suspension and then ultimately relicensing that are showing this exact same metabolite at a very similar level that according to previous tests, specifically on clomiphene, that this could be this specifically on clomiphene, that this could be this pulsing result of existing and not existing.

01:05:35.000 But this is not indicative of...

01:05:37.000 In any way that can be provable of microdosing.

01:05:41.000 Correct.

01:05:42.000 And not only that, but this is over, we're talking about this being over long term, long periods of time, many months.

01:05:49.000 Yes.

01:05:50.000 Okay, and consistent numbers over many months.

01:05:52.000 Yes.

01:05:53.000 And again, going back to what one expert, Dr. Bauer, said, you've got to be careful.

01:05:58.000 What you're talking about, single, double picograms, and you see some variants, you've got to be careful about saying, well, it went from 9 to 18. That means re-administration.

01:06:07.000 No.

01:06:08.000 It's inexact science at that level.

01:06:10.000 The WADA labs, this is a non-threshold substance.

01:06:13.000 So all WADA requires them to say, to report back to WADA, Positive or negative.

01:06:19.000 They're not required to quantify.

01:06:21.000 However, these water labs have also realized there's an issue when you're getting down to picograms.

01:06:26.000 So what they're doing is going back after reporting the positive.

01:06:30.000 Hey, let's see if we can estimate what this level is.

01:06:33.000 It's an inexact science at picogram quantities, in my understanding, to estimate what those levels are.

01:06:40.000 And you can see some variations.

01:06:42.000 So Nevada...

01:06:45.000 Is unwilling to sanction the fight based on all this information?

01:06:49.000 So they get the initial notice that we got also, I think it was December 6, saying, look, there was an issue in August.

01:06:57.000 These long-term metabolites reappeared again, but we've since had four negative tests.

01:07:02.000 We don't believe that the August reappearance is a readministration.

01:07:07.000 There's no sanction here.

01:07:09.000 Nevada, you don't even have jurisdiction over the August test.

01:07:12.000 Again, keep in mind, these are UFC tests.

01:07:14.000 Nevada doesn't mandate it.

01:07:15.000 But Nevada says, look, closer to a fight, we do take jurisdiction.

01:07:19.000 We will adopt these USADA tests.

01:07:21.000 So USADA didn't need to notify.

01:07:24.000 They thought, out of an abundance of caution, let's let Nevada know that this issue exists. 1.00

01:07:29.000 God damn you, Sada. 1.00

01:07:30.000 What the fuck? 1.00

01:07:31.000 But hey, wait. 1.00

01:07:32.000 That's all good.

01:07:33.000 Nevada gets this.

01:07:34.000 I talk with them.

01:07:35.000 They're like, whoa, this is concerning, but we don't see anything within our jurisdiction here.

01:07:40.000 So I certainly hope that no subsequent tests show up positive because that could be an issue.

01:07:46.000 And sure enough...

01:07:48.000 USADA collects a sample from John on 12-9.

01:07:51.000 They expedited the results because they knew a fight was coming up, and they do that now when the collections are done close to a fight.

01:07:59.000 And here, you know, he pulses back up to, you know, between 60 and 80 picograms.

01:08:06.000 So Nevada gets this.

01:08:08.000 This was last week, man.

01:08:09.000 The days have run together for me.

01:08:11.000 So a week ago Friday, we have in Bob Bennett, who's the executive director.

01:08:17.000 Well, I'm a big fan of.

01:08:18.000 He's a great guy. 0.99

01:08:19.000 I should say, I talk shit about Nevada, but I really like Bob. 0.97

01:08:21.000 Former FBI agent, so we've got a ton in common. 0.99

01:08:23.000 And he doesn't fuck around. 1.00

01:08:24.000 He is. 1.00

01:08:24.000 Absolutely. 1.00

01:08:25.000 One of the reasons why it probably wasn't sanctioned in Nevada was because they're so by the book.

01:08:29.000 I get angry because I wanted the fight to be in Nevada, but I understand Bob's position implicitly.

01:08:35.000 So let me make clear what happened.

01:08:37.000 Bob came in, Anthony Marnell, the chairman of the commission came in, and a couple of representatives from the Nevada Attorney General's office.

01:08:43.000 So they are the ones that prosecute cases involving PED use that violates Nevada regs.

01:08:51.000 So we share all this with them.

01:08:53.000 Like this, like you did with me.

01:08:54.000 Correct.

01:08:55.000 Share it all with them.

01:08:56.000 And look, there's some misconception out there.

01:08:58.000 They did not say, this fight's absolutely not happening next week.

01:09:02.000 In fact, they, I think, were understanding these issues, but said, look, you know... 0.98

01:09:09.000 Optically, this doesn't look great, and we feel that out of an abundance of caution that we need to have a public hearing and be very transparent about this, because this is some weird shit. 0.89

01:09:24.000 This was last Friday, so we're eight days out from the fight. 0.63

01:09:26.000 So we start talking about, hey, when can we potentially have this?

01:09:30.000 And unfortunately, Christmas holiday, several of the commissioners weren't even in town.

01:09:37.000 And basically what they said is, look, we will absolutely do this if you want us to, but likely that hearing would not be until today, Thursday, or maybe tomorrow, Friday.

01:09:47.000 And And, you know, Marnell's like, look, I'm starting to get my head around this, but I can't guarantee you that my other commissioners or me are going to come out the same way.

01:09:58.000 So you're taking a chance here that we could say, well, we need more information.

01:10:04.000 So basically, they were willing to listen to it.

01:10:08.000 I think they were starting to wrap their heads around it, but didn't feel that they were up to speed enough on it.

01:10:15.000 They didn't have the luxury that Andy Foster and California have.

01:10:19.000 Remember, when John tested positive in July 2018, that fight was in California.

01:10:25.000 Because that fight was in California, California retained jurisdiction.

01:10:30.000 They've had two very public hearings on John when they suspended his license, and most recently, a week and a half ago, when they reinstated his license.

01:10:38.000 So Andy and the Commission were very familiar with oral turinibol.

01:10:43.000 They were very familiar with the long-term metabolite.

01:10:46.000 And in fact, Andy was somewhat critical of USADA during the last hearing.

01:10:51.000 He thought, after looking at all the details, after reading McLaren's position, that there was no evidence that this was done on purpose.

01:11:00.000 He thought, man, maybe they went a little bit hard on him, and he stated that in that second hearing.

01:11:06.000 So with the reemergence of the picogram quantity of this M3 long-term metabolite, Andy and the commission, unlike Nevada, didn't need to get up and speed on it.

01:11:17.000 They've already had two public hearings on John's issue.

01:11:20.000 They were intimately familiar with some of these dynamics of this drug and the metabolites, and that's why he felt comfortable based on their familiarization with it and based on these written absolute statements by these experts that there was no re-ingestion, one.

01:11:38.000 And then the second thing, which we haven't covered, is these experts said, based on these low-level picograms, there's no performance-enhancing benefit.

01:11:46.000 And that's an important point.

01:11:48.000 Because if you would have told UFC, look, this is still remnants from a year and a half ago, but we can't rule out that he's not getting a performance-enhancing benefit from it.

01:12:00.000 Well, in that instance, I'll tell you, and I stand by this, I would leave this company if somebody told me otherwise.

01:12:07.000 If there was any indication that there would be a benefit from him, even though it technically wasn't a violation, I'm not going to stand by, well, anybody licenses that guy to fight.

01:12:17.000 Could this have been somehow or another mitigated by communicating these results to Nevada earlier?

01:12:26.000 Well, we didn't announce the fight that John was going to fight in Nevada until October.

01:12:33.000 But in October, could you have said, hey, look, here's this issue...

01:12:37.000 Sure.

01:12:38.000 Potentially, but the issue was USADA hadn't come to that.

01:12:42.000 They were in the middle of that point of consulting with other professional sports leagues, with the other WADA labs.

01:12:49.000 They hadn't reached their conclusion.

01:12:51.000 Their science expert hadn't determined, hey, this is definitely residual, no performance enhancing.

01:12:56.000 They were still going through that data at that point.

01:12:59.000 So what they've told me is, look, we tried to hurry that along as fast as possible.

01:13:03.000 We wanted to make sure that we went through this in very, very detailed and no stone left unturned.

01:13:09.000 When did they reach this conclusion?

01:13:11.000 So this was early December.

01:13:13.000 So December 6th, that letter went out saying, we've had these two low-level positives back in August.

01:13:18.000 Well, okay, but here we are.

01:13:20.000 I mean, this is the end of December.

01:13:22.000 Could this have been headed off at the pass?

01:13:25.000 Well, again, when Nevada first got notified...

01:13:29.000 We were hoping, well, he's had four negative tests, so he's probably going to be negative going forward here, right?

01:13:35.000 I mean, that's what the layperson would think.

01:13:37.000 Okay, he's probably out of the woods now.

01:13:39.000 But, again, getting back to what period of time is this in John's preparation?

01:13:45.000 And if you look at some of these numbers and when these metabolites appear and disappear...

01:13:50.000 In early August, John was preparing his defense for this arbitration.

01:13:55.000 I think he had an idea based on talking to his attorneys.

01:13:58.000 Like, hey, we got a pretty good shot here of some mitigating factors where this is potentially going to get reduced.

01:14:04.000 So I think, you know, he starts to get a little bit motivated, gets in the gym, starts training again.

01:14:09.000 Clearly, in early December, that's the period of time when our fighters that close to a fight are bringing down that body weight, right?

01:14:17.000 They're cutting body fat. 0.90

01:14:18.000 They're losing, you know, a little bit of water.

01:14:20.000 So it certainly seems to correlate these pulsing effects with when...

01:14:26.000 This is just theoretical, right?

01:14:28.000 That it's released in the adipose tissue?

01:14:29.000 Absolutely, it is.

01:14:30.000 So this positive result was announced when?

01:14:35.000 So, a week ago yesterday...

01:14:39.000 And this is USADA's announcement.

01:14:41.000 USADA notifies us, the UFC, that always happens, and they notify if any commission has jurisdiction.

01:14:47.000 At this point, this close to a fight, Nevada has jurisdiction.

01:14:51.000 So, I get the call, and you can imagine what's going through in my head.

01:14:57.000 I mean, I've gotten so many of these calls now, I literally, for the first five or ten minutes, can bury my head in my hand and think through exactly how this thing's going to play out.

01:15:07.000 And, you know, it's going to be, hey, Nevada's going to say, wait a second, what's going on here?

01:15:12.000 We need to root this out.

01:15:15.000 John's going to say, Jesus Christ, what is going on in my life? 0.99

01:15:19.000 I can't get a fucking break. 0.98

01:15:20.000 I'm trying to be careful. 0.99

01:15:23.000 I even went through how DC is going to react and he react. 0.98

01:15:26.000 He's going to be, I fucking told you this was the case. 1.00

01:15:29.000 This guy's a cheater. 1.00

01:15:30.000 You know, USADA's bullshit. 1.00

01:15:32.000 Nowitzki's bullshit. 1.00

01:15:33.000 All this stuff goes through my head in the first five or ten minutes. 1.00

01:15:36.000 How's Dana going to react? 1.00

01:15:38.000 How's Hunter going to react when I have to go over to his office and explain this out to them?

01:15:42.000 It played out exactly as I saw it.

01:15:44.000 It's some of the worst days of my career when I get these calls.

01:15:49.000 But, you know, everyone was notified, and Nevada was in our office two days later, and again, I mean, there's been some criticism of them out there.

01:15:59.000 I don't fault them.

01:16:00.000 This is a complicated issue that optically doesn't look great, and to do anything in a rushed manner would be difficult.

01:16:07.000 They did everything they could to afford us having a hearing.

01:16:11.000 Problem was, it was just too close to a fight.

01:16:15.000 So essentially...

01:16:17.000 To get this out, this issue with optics, right?

01:16:19.000 Because you go on Twitter, everybody's calling them a cheat.

01:16:22.000 Everybody's saying that, you know, anybody that sanctions this, you're sanctioning cheating.

01:16:29.000 For someone to get an understanding of what this is like, it actually requires probably more than we've done now over the last hour and 15 minutes.

01:16:36.000 Yeah, and I appreciate this forum. 0.98

01:16:38.000 I mean, Dana and I went on SportsCenter and announced it in a three-minute hit, and I came out of there going, absolutely, everyone in the world is going to say, this is bullshit. 0.97

01:16:45.000 You can't. 0.96

01:16:47.000 We're going to have a hard time doing this in two hours here.

01:16:50.000 Yeah, most things.

01:16:51.000 Yeah, you've got to delve into it, and you also have to put your trust and reliance on these experts.

01:16:57.000 They have...

01:17:01.000 years to come up with these absolutes there's no one else in the world but maybe a dozen people that can come up with these conclusions you do have to put your you know your faith in in their background and their careers and their knowledge and education and you know i read what those absolutes were that there was no evidence of any re-ingestion this is by multiple um experts and that john would not have retained any performance benefit based on these low-level picogram amounts

01:17:30.000 Well, I'm happy that we're going to have this out there, so people, if they have the time, if they're really that interested in it, this is probably a more in-depth discussion of this than you're going to get anywhere else.

01:17:41.000 But I really wish we could have gotten something like this to Nevada, and Nevada could have gone over this and looked at what I'm seeing, what you're saying.

01:17:49.000 It seems to me that we could have just had some sort of a meeting and kept this fight in Nevada, and it would have saved everybody a lot of heartache.

01:17:57.000 Yeah, I mean, I think things were pointing in that, but there was no guarantees in that.

01:18:02.000 Roll the dice, baby! 0.99

01:18:03.000 It's Nevada!

01:18:03.000 Come on, it's Vegas!

01:18:05.000 You know, the other thing that was being looked at was fairness to these athletes.

01:18:09.000 Really, you're going to put John and Gus, maybe more importantly, in a position where he doesn't know until two days or a day before whether this fight is happening or not.

01:18:20.000 And not even mentioning the other fighters on the card.

01:18:23.000 And look, you can talk to, and I have, to Sean and Mick and Dana and Hunter.

01:18:28.000 All these fighters want to be on the big pay-per-views.

01:18:32.000 the fight at the top of the card the more eyes are on that fight and when you have a spectacular fight in the first second fight on the card if it's on a big pay-per-view with a giant fight at the top of it that can propel your career your next fight you could be fighting the main event on you know a fight pass and progress from there so I think you know I think it's accurate to say that generally everybody wants these these cards to be as big as possible and

01:18:58.000 And when all the experts are telling us, A, 100% this isn't a sanction, B, he's not retaining any performance-enhancing benefits, I think, and clearly Dane and Hunter thought this, we have an obligation to do what we can do for fairness, for John, definitely, for Gus, for the rest of the card, to try to make this fight happen.

01:19:18.000 Going forward, is there any way we could ever prevent something like this from happening again with a similar situation in a place like Nevada?

01:19:25.000 So here's...

01:19:26.000 I think we have a couple solutions to that, and it's not necessarily relative to the commission, but one thing that obviously protected John a lot in this was the frequency of testing.

01:19:35.000 You know, if you look at his numbers, and these were...

01:19:39.000 These were instances where they collected samples, but in many of these cases, they did multiple tests on him.

01:19:44.000 And that means, you know, the tests I'm reading were for the anabolic steroid panel.

01:19:48.000 But in addition to that, they may have done a biological passport test on that same collection.

01:19:53.000 They may have done an HGH test, an EPO test.

01:19:56.000 And this is all confidential that USADA doesn't release all this information?

01:19:59.000 They release numbers on the publicly available website, but you don't see what those tests are done.

01:20:04.000 So the reality, and they just told me this, is John was one of the most, if not the most, tested athlete over these last six months.

01:20:10.000 When you look at total amount of tests on his samples, excuse me.

01:20:15.000 One thing that obviously protected them here was that volume of testing.

01:20:19.000 And so, USADA came to us and said, you know, hey, we think that you probably should, you know, up the amount of tests that you're doing.

01:20:27.000 So, we just renewed a contract with USADA and we're increasing our testing numbers by 30 to 40%.

01:20:35.000 We currently The first three years of the program, we're under contract for approximately 2,700 tests.

01:20:42.000 And starting this next year, we're going to up that to around 4,300, 4,400 tests.

01:20:47.000 So I think it's going to be more of a burden.

01:20:50.000 You're just out of showing up in more doorsteps early in the morning of more of our athletes.

01:20:55.000 But I think this is a perfect example that that increased volume of testing actually can be a protectant.

01:21:00.000 To the athlete, especially when you're talking these low-level picogram quantities and contaminated cases and things like that.

01:21:07.000 We just got to get athletes to stop taking any supplement that's not third-party tested.

01:21:12.000 Great point.

01:21:12.000 So here's what we've done in that area.

01:21:14.000 So...

01:21:15.000 About three months ago, USADA hosted a working group.

01:21:18.000 It included the UFC, myself, and our sports nutritionist, Clint Wattenberg, who you've met, were there.

01:21:25.000 Major League Baseball was there.

01:21:27.000 The Department of Defense was there.

01:21:29.000 There's been warfighters who have purchased supplements at bases over in Iraq and Afghanistan that contain ephedrine and other bad products.

01:21:38.000 Some of them potentially have died as a result of ingesting them, so they definitely have an interest in safety and dietary supplements.

01:21:45.000 And USADA's experts were there.

01:21:47.000 What we did is we invited in the major third-party certification companies, and each one took a half day presenting what their programs look like.

01:21:56.000 We went back and huddled after each one and huddled at the conclusion and said, what is a platinum standard third-party certification look like?

01:22:04.000 All these presentations we got, what was strengths in ones, weaknesses in the others, and we have to put a perfect one together, what does it look like?

01:22:13.000 Over the last month, we've been authoring a paper that's going to be published in a scientific journal going over what that gold standard, platinum standard, looks like.

01:22:24.000 Going forward, any third-party certification company that can meet that, and there are some that are very close, I think will be able to do it very quickly.

01:22:32.000 We are going to say, USADA is going to say, this is an approved line of supplements.

01:22:38.000 We approve you to take this.

01:22:40.000 And this is something that we've been unable to do in the first three and a half years of the program.

01:22:43.000 And I tell you, Joe, it's the most common question I get from our athletes.

01:22:47.000 What's USADA approved?

01:22:49.000 And as soon as I say, USADA doesn't approve any supplements, but here's how you ensure your safety.

01:22:56.000 They stop listening.

01:22:57.000 Goes in one ear, out the other.

01:22:59.000 This is a silly suggestion, but why doesn't the UFC come up with its own supplement line and provide them to the fighters and say, you can't take anything else?

01:23:09.000 Yeah, I mean, it's definitely been talked through.

01:23:11.000 If they had sponsorships with other supplement lines.

01:23:14.000 Exactly.

01:23:14.000 There's a lot of dynamics to it.

01:23:16.000 It's not as easy as doing it overnight and the distribution method.

01:23:20.000 If you could say, hey, you could take creatine, you could take all the multivitamins, you could take branched-chain amino acids, all these things that have been proven to be effective, but that's weird too, right?

01:23:33.000 It's like they're effective, meaning they enhance performance and recovery, but they don't do enough to be considered a performance-enhancing drug.

01:23:39.000 Yeah, and they're present in the food supply, too.

01:23:42.000 So, like, you know, basically, you can go eat 10 chicken breasts or, you know, have a couple scoops of protein if you're on the go and don't have time to do it.

01:23:50.000 So, I think, again, apples and oranges in terms of performance enhancing or not.

01:23:56.000 So, the theory would be we have an approved – when I'm – or Donner asks that question, what's approved?

01:24:01.000 I can say – Here's, let's say, NSF. NSF has 1,200 supplements that are approved.

01:24:07.000 I'd say, all 1,200 of these are approved.

01:24:09.000 You should only use these.

01:24:10.000 If something were to happen to an athlete that used an approved line of supplements, it's a get-out-of-jail-free card.

01:24:16.000 If they can prove it, and you saw it independently prove it, there's no sanction.

01:24:20.000 I think that is going to go a long way, and I'll give you a reason for that.

01:24:24.000 Major League Baseball does that.

01:24:25.000 They have for the last couple of years, now they have some advantage in that all their athletes are employees and are coming into the same facility during the season.

01:24:35.000 So they have some control over theirs.

01:24:36.000 We don't.

01:24:37.000 Our athletes are spread amongst, I think, 46 countries throughout the world.

01:24:41.000 So it's more of a challenge.

01:24:42.000 But baseball said the only supplements we're allowing in the clubhouse or in a facility are, and they use NSF supplements, they had zero contaminated supplement cases last year.

01:24:54.000 They had, I think their testing numbers were four times the amount of our testing numbers and zero contaminated supplements.

01:25:01.000 I mean, the proof's in the pudding right there.

01:25:03.000 So they have some sort of a deal with NSF? I don't know if it's a deal other than they've examined who those certification companies are and they feel that they're, you know, at the top of the line.

01:25:14.000 We don't want to exclude any.

01:25:16.000 That's why we're contributing to this paper to say, look, anyone could be one of these approved lines, but you must meet this criteria for a platinum standard program.

01:25:24.000 But it's coming from someone who's in a supplement business, me.

01:25:27.000 That's the Wild West out there.

01:25:29.000 Boy, is it.

01:25:30.000 I mean, there's a... 1.00

01:25:32.000 There's a lot of shit out there that's just... 0.99

01:25:34.000 They purposely add performance-enhancing drugs to their stuff because it's cheap, and people take it, and they experience these gains, and then they sell a lot of it. 0.99

01:25:45.000 Yeah, and then you get a following.

01:25:46.000 Exactly.

01:25:46.000 I saw that when I was with the FDA. What they normally will do for maybe the first six months of the product, they'll spike it with something if they're going that route, and then to decrease liability thereafter, they've already got the following...

01:25:59.000 They back off.

01:25:59.000 The stuff's working like hell, and then they back off just in case the government starts sniffing around.

01:26:04.000 And it doesn't work anymore.

01:26:04.000 People go, oh, my body must have adapted.

01:26:06.000 Exactly.

01:26:06.000 No, you're off the juice, son.

01:26:08.000 Yep.

01:26:11.000 It's really such a shame because this is such a fantastic fight.

01:26:15.000 I mean, there's so much drama involved already, just having Jon Jones returning, having Alexander Gustafson looking absolutely sensational in his last fight with Glover Teixeira, all the trash talk and hype and intensity and the fact that this is really, other than DC vs Jon, this is the fight that people want to see in the light heavyweight division.

01:26:34.000 And look, nobody's saying, and I'm certainly not saying that John didn't do anything wrong.

01:26:39.000 He obviously did.

01:26:41.000 John has two times now tested positive for prohibited substances.

01:26:46.000 However, in both occasions, arbitrators have determined that it was not done intentionally.

01:26:53.000 So anyone who says that, oh, John's getting off light on this, he's been suspended for almost two and a half years.

01:27:01.000 With a lack of evidence of any intentional use or cheating.

01:27:06.000 You know how much money he's probably lost in those two and a half years?

01:27:09.000 I mean, tens of millions of dollars, his reputation.

01:27:12.000 Anybody who says that he got off scot-free on this, I would argue the otherwise.

01:27:17.000 He was settled to the strictest of liability standards out there.

01:27:21.000 Someone at the top of their game, money earning potential like him.

01:27:24.000 There's also an incredible amount of stress and pressure that's on him.

01:27:29.000 He's a human being.

01:27:30.000 He feels and he hears what people are saying about them.

01:27:32.000 And that's got to be very difficult.

01:27:34.000 Also, coming off of this massive suspension.

01:27:36.000 So he's coming off of this suspension, which was huge, very public, very worldwide.

01:27:41.000 After the cocaine, the car accident, the dick pills that had the stuff in it.

01:27:47.000 I mean, there's so many things.

01:27:49.000 And then to have this happen literally the week of and have the fight move to California.

01:27:55.000 And I get the skepticism that's out there.

01:27:57.000 Again, without delving into this, I've spent hours and hours, and these experts have spent their careers looking into that.

01:28:04.000 That's really what's required to get a comprehension and understanding of it.

01:28:10.000 Another thing, another argument, John's being treated specially because he's John.

01:28:14.000 But we had another athlete that this somewhat identical thing happened to, but nowhere near at the level of John.

01:28:21.000 So a kid by the name of Grant Dawson.

01:28:23.000 So Grant Dawson last summer was in the Dayton White Contender Series.

01:28:29.000 We had an awesome fight.

01:28:30.000 Dana's like, you got a contract, kid.

01:28:33.000 We get them into the USADA program.

01:28:35.000 The USADA program requires you to disclose everything you've used going back 12 months or one year.

01:28:42.000 The idea being, look, even though you weren't under the program, if you used oral torrentibole eight or nine months ago, There could still be an advantage that you'd be getting.

01:28:53.000 We're not going to necessarily suspend you because you weren't subject to the program then, but we're not going to let you fight right away.

01:28:59.000 You're going to have to be in the program for a certain amount of time testing clean.

01:29:02.000 So he didn't disclose that he was using anything.

01:29:05.000 His first test, he tests positive for M3 metabolite, low levels.

01:29:11.000 He goes to arbitration, argues, testifies under oath.

01:29:15.000 I've never heard of this substance.

01:29:16.000 I've never taken it.

01:29:18.000 I would never cheat.

01:29:19.000 Here are all the supplements I was using.

01:29:21.000 I can't find it.

01:29:22.000 The arbitrator hears the hearing.

01:29:24.000 USADA goes to them and says, hold on a second.

01:29:26.000 We're looking into this matter, talking to baseball, whatever.

01:29:30.000 USADA comes out that, hey, we can't prove that this didn't enter his substance a year before that disclosure required him to disclose what he was using.

01:29:40.000 So he was basically let off and eligible.

01:29:42.000 So John's not the only person in the UFC that this has happened to, notwithstanding other professional sports leagues, other Olympics.

01:29:51.000 It's happened to other athletes.

01:29:54.000 He's not the only one.

01:29:56.000 So, I think what's important for people, I get the skepticism, but I think it's very important that people don't accuse someone of something that they didn't do.

01:30:07.000 And I want you, if you're listening to this, I want you to imagine if you're Jon Jones and you're trying to get your shit together and you didn't do anything new, you didn't do anything different.

01:30:18.000 We've got to have a path of redemption for people.

01:30:22.000 You have to.

01:30:23.000 And if John, as you're saying, and all these tests conclude, if he didn't do anything, folks, you've got to stop saying he's cheating.

01:30:33.000 He's not cheating. 0.99

01:30:34.000 If he's not cheating, and if it's showing that these are these long-term residual metabolites that are in incredibly small dosages, There's real cheaters out there, and John's fucked up. 1.00

01:30:45.000 He has fucked up, and you were all right to be upset at him when he fucked up. 0.96

01:30:49.000 This is not, at least as my conclusion after talking to you, and I've talked to some independent scientists that were skeptical about some of the aspects of it, but they're also... 0.99

01:30:59.000 They're skeptical because they're not up to date, perhaps, on the differences in this pulsing effect or the fact that this is something that is relatively...

01:31:11.000 There's not a lot of...

01:31:14.000 A lot of documentation on this.

01:31:16.000 This is something that's relatively new in terms of our ability to understand picograms, our ability to understand this pulsing effect, all these different variables that you have to take into account when it comes to this.

01:31:27.000 People love to call it cheat.

01:31:29.000 They love to.

01:31:30.000 And it's good.

01:31:30.000 It's good that the people are out there keeping people honest.

01:31:33.000 But I think we've got to look at this the right way.

01:31:36.000 And I think the right way is the way you're laying it out here.

01:31:39.000 I don't see any holes in this.

01:31:41.000 So, you know, a couple things in the future that people can look forward to.

01:31:45.000 We want, and John wants to fight Nevada again, and Nevada has basically said, look, I think we understand this issue, but we need to have this hearing.

01:31:52.000 There will be a public hearing on this, my understanding is early quarter one.

01:31:56.000 So, look, you know, don't take my word for it.

01:31:59.000 Wait until January.

01:32:00.000 I'm sure they'll call some of these experts to testify, introduce some of these documents into the public record.

01:32:06.000 And this will likely be far longer even than this conversation.

01:32:08.000 Yes, that would be my guess.

01:32:11.000 So, yeah, I mean, that's to come.

01:32:14.000 The whole thing is such a disaster for everybody else on the card.

01:32:17.000 For Amanda Nunes and Chris Cyborg and for all the people on the undercard.

01:32:21.000 I mean, it's just to have them to move all the way to California.

01:32:24.000 What I'm happy about, though, is that the fight is still happening.

01:32:28.000 I'm very happy the fight is still happening.

01:32:30.000 I am.

01:32:31.000 And again, I have to take an objective look about is this fair as it relates to how our policy and what the rules are.

01:32:38.000 And, you know, when you have, you know, one of the experts in the world, Dr. Daniel Eichner of the Smyrtle Laboratory, issue an absolute statement like there is no evidence that DHCMT has been readministered.

01:32:52.000 And that based on these low levels, he does not retaining a performance enhancing benefit.

01:32:58.000 How out of fairness and implementing the program do you prevent this fight from happening?

01:33:02.000 You can't do that.

01:33:03.000 That would be categorically unfair.

01:33:08.000 Moving forward from here, what changes and what do we do to stop something like this from happening?

01:33:13.000 Well, again, I think the increased volume of testing is going to help.

01:33:16.000 I think being able to specifically direct our athletes to approve line of supplements will help.

01:33:24.000 But, you know, hey, we can, Don and I can message the hell out of these things, but, you know, it takes the athletes in their camps to listen to what we're saying.

01:33:34.000 So, I mean, if anything good comes out of this, hopefully it's a warning to those others out there about how careful you need to be.

01:33:42.000 So, just to wrap this up, so people understand, if you want to put a button on this, there's no evidence whatsoever of any microdosing.

01:33:51.000 So this is one of the concerns.

01:33:52.000 People are worried about microdosing.

01:33:54.000 No evidence whatsoever of microdosing.

01:33:56.000 It wouldn't be a substance you would generally microdose.

01:33:58.000 You do endogenous substances, not exogenous.

01:34:01.000 There's also no evidence of the short-term and medium-term metabolites that were recognized by Rechenkov.

01:34:12.000 Is that how you say his name again?

01:34:13.000 I think it is, yep.

01:34:14.000 Why do I say Grigory? 0.60

01:34:15.000 I have a tough time with it, too.

01:34:17.000 Because it's Grigory. 0.94

01:34:17.000 It's not even Grigory. 0.94

01:34:18.000 It's Grigory. 0.90

01:34:21.000 That's the only test we have.

01:34:22.000 No parent compound ever found as well.

01:34:24.000 These are the only tests we have that show these long-term, short-term, and medium-term The short-term and the medium-term ones that would be indicative of him taking it recently don't exist at any point in time during these testings.

01:34:39.000 Correct.

01:34:40.000 So this is most likely something that is inside of his body that is in incredibly small levels.

01:34:46.000 And is it safe to say that the detection levels, that the detection methods are far superior today than they were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago?

01:34:58.000 Increase by thousands of percentage points in sensitivity.

01:35:02.000 I mean, again...

01:35:03.000 And how recently?

01:35:04.000 Over the last five years.

01:35:06.000 And how recently have they improved from today versus a year ago?

01:35:11.000 Yeah, I believe so.

01:35:13.000 Again, you know, when I heard about the one picogram detection of the M3 metabolite, you know, that was something that happened this year.

01:35:19.000 I'm not aware of that ever being that low of a number in any time in the past.

01:35:23.000 So I think...

01:35:24.000 You know, literally week by week, month by month, as we're going here, that level of sensitivity is increasing exponentially.

01:35:32.000 And also, no possible performance-enhancing benefits from these incredibly low levels?

01:35:38.000 That's what the experts are telling me.

01:35:39.000 Look, and again, I'm not the expert.

01:35:41.000 I don't want to profess that I am, but what do I have to go to?

01:35:46.000 I need to go to those experts that have made careers out of studying these substances and the benefits, and they are all...

01:35:52.000 Universally telling me that there's no performance enhancing benefit.

01:35:55.000 Full compliance by Jon Jones in terms of being there for USADA at every single test, notifying his whereabouts, doing everything by the book in terms of what the UFC requires and what USADA requires.

01:36:07.000 Yeah, so our program has a three-strike policy.

01:36:10.000 So basically, you know, if you miss a test for an unexplained reason three times, then it could be a violation.

01:36:17.000 Jon's never had one whereabouts strike.

01:36:19.000 He's always been available when USADA's tried to test him.

01:36:22.000 And again, especially recently, one of the most tested athletes in the UFC. Wasn't there one test in the past where USADA showed up at the gym and there was some sort of speculation that John was hiding under the ring?

01:36:34.000 Pre-USADA. That was pre-USADA before I got here.

01:36:38.000 I've heard about that.

01:36:39.000 I don't know details.

01:36:40.000 I don't know whether it's true or not.

01:36:42.000 I think it was a Nevada State Athletic Commission test.

01:36:44.000 My recollection is right, but it wasn't a USADA test.

01:36:46.000 Okay.

01:36:47.000 So there's no reason in terms of how you're looking at this particular case that this fight should not take place or that John should be sanctioned any further?

01:36:57.000 There isn't.

01:36:58.000 And look, it's the least compelling argument, but I think you have to look at it.

01:37:03.000 You have to look at the common sense approach to this.

01:37:06.000 A guy who went through a year and a half almost suspension, two very, I would categorize as embarrassing public hearings in California, a long arbitration hearing before McLaren.

01:37:19.000 all this science is rooted out about how long this stuff stays in your system, long-term metabolites for months, maybe years, you're going to choose to use oral tyrinobol still after going through all that leading up to a fight?

01:37:34.000 I don't buy that. 0.97

01:37:35.000 See, I agree with what you're saying, but in terms of people fucking up, there are no bounds. 0.99

01:37:43.000 On human stupidity, and in terms of people's ability to do impulsive things that are irrational, that wind up sabotaging their career, there's almost more of an indication that people are willing to do that than not. 0.98

01:37:57.000 You're less likely, and this is in terms of, especially in fighters. 0.99

01:38:02.000 Fighters are ridiculously impulsive.

01:38:04.000 It's one of the things that categorizes, it's a characteristic of the type of human being that gets involved in that John is a new level crazy guy.

01:38:23.000 Least compelling argument.

01:38:24.000 I agree.

01:38:24.000 Least compelling, but I think we'd be remiss if we didn't at least consider that.

01:38:29.000 Okay, I see your point.

01:38:30.000 I don't buy it.

01:38:32.000 That part I don't buy.

01:38:33.000 I buy all the science, and I'm a big Jon Jones fan. 0.71

01:38:36.000 I mean, you can call me a Jon Jones suck-up all day long.

01:38:39.000 I think he's one of the greatest of all time, and I think it's not over for him.

01:38:42.000 I think he still could reach...

01:38:44.000 I don't even think he's at his peak.

01:38:46.000 I think he's still got time to be the greatest of all time if he hasn't already achieved that.

01:38:51.000 But I think that he's also a wild man.

01:38:54.000 It's one of the reasons why he's so great.

01:38:56.000 It's one of the reasons why he opened up the fight with Shogun at 22 years old with a flying knee. 1.00

01:39:00.000 He's a wild motherfucker. 1.00

01:39:02.000 That's who he is. 1.00

01:39:04.000 And it's one of many reasons besides his talent that he's so goddamn good. 0.80

01:39:09.000 I know the lows of the lows he's gone through these last two years. 0.89

01:39:14.000 You wouldn't believe how low those lows were.

01:39:16.000 So again, look, I don't disagree with you that that's not out of the area of consideration, but man, I just don't think anybody could be that reckless.

01:39:26.000 I hope you're right.

01:39:28.000 I also worry that fighters... 0.98

01:39:32.000 Oftentimes and I'm not accusing John of doing this but oftentimes surround themselves with morons and these morons give them poor advice and these morons Think that they have ways to skirt systems and and get around the rules and they have people that you know Throw much fancy words their way and they want to believe and this happens all the time this happens all the time with fighters in regards to financial management and And advice that they get with that. 1.00

01:39:59.000 I mean, I've seen, like, world-class fighters do ridiculous shit in terms of strength and conditioning because some asshole with a good vocabulary talks them into some nonsense. 0.99

01:40:09.000 This is just one of the things that happens with fighters, and oftentimes they can be around someone who gives them poor advice in terms of what they can and cannot get away with. 0.99

01:40:18.000 When it comes to supplementation and when it comes to steroid use.

01:40:22.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:40:22.000 And I see that all over the place.

01:40:25.000 In John's case, however, to give credit where credit's due, you know, his team, after the initial positive with the dick pills, was very interactive with me and Donna.

01:40:34.000 And, you know, checking supplements, hey, what line should we go to show?

01:40:38.000 They, you know, to give them credit, they definitely showed an increased exercise of care when it came to supplementation with John.

01:40:44.000 Well that's great to hear and I really hope this is a thing of the past and I hope this is the last time we ever have to talk about John in this term and that moving forward we just talk about him in terms of his performances and his fights and what he's already achieved.

01:40:57.000 He's already the youngest UFC champion of all time.

01:41:00.000 Anything else?

01:41:01.000 Yeah, so I was going to bring this up at the beginning but the golden snitch. 0.97

01:41:08.000 First of all, that's Brendan Schaub's name.

01:41:10.000 He gave it to you.

01:41:12.000 So taking on a life of its own, and I think the last time we talked about Donna asking Alexa who Jeff the Golden Snitch is.

01:41:21.000 Let's see what Siri says.

01:41:23.000 Hold on a second.

01:41:24.000 Let's see what Siri says.

01:41:24.000 I've never tried this.

01:41:26.000 Hold on a second.

01:41:29.000 Who is the Golden Snitch?

01:41:32.000 Here's some information.

01:41:35.000 Oh.

01:41:37.000 Quadditch?

01:41:37.000 It's something in Harry Potter.

01:41:39.000 Yeah.

01:41:39.000 I didn't know either.

01:41:40.000 Is that Quadditch?

01:41:41.000 After the last time on, and I mentioned, you know, it was in, I think, my Wikipedia profile, it had me as, aka, the Golden Snitch.

01:41:47.000 Somebody took that down.

01:41:49.000 Hey, Siri, who is the Golden Snitch?

01:41:55.000 No, Siri.

01:41:56.000 Siri keeps going with quad itch.

01:41:59.000 So someone took it down from Wikipedia?

01:42:01.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:42:01.000 Why would they do that?

01:42:02.000 Well, I think we talked about it.

01:42:03.000 You're like, hey, I don't know.

01:42:04.000 They just did it.

01:42:05.000 How dare you people?

01:42:08.000 So, I think I told you last time.

01:42:09.000 I bet it's back up already.

01:42:10.000 Coworkers call me in.

01:42:12.000 Yes.

01:42:12.000 My family calls me in.

01:42:13.000 They call you the golden fish.

01:42:14.000 Friends call me in.

01:42:15.000 I was at the MMA Awards last year, and some yahoo had a few pops back at me screaming in between presentations, the golden snitch is in the...

01:42:24.000 I'm slinking down in my chair.

01:42:27.000 My girlfriend and I... There it is.

01:42:28.000 There we go.

01:42:28.000 Bam!

01:42:29.000 The golden snitch is back up already.

01:42:31.000 And that UFC on the end of the neck popped up. 0.83

01:42:32.000 Beautiful. 0.99

01:42:33.000 Just fucking... 1.00

01:42:34.000 When they do that, just put your hands up in the air. 1.00

01:42:36.000 Make a shirt.

01:42:37.000 Like you won.

01:42:37.000 Yeah, you definitely should make a shirt.

01:42:39.000 During shows, I'll sit pretty close to the cage, go out in between a fight into the bathroom.

01:42:44.000 And it's not Joe Rogan level. 0.92

01:42:45.000 We're half the damn arena standing up excited to see you walking in and out of the fighter walk. 0.92

01:42:50.000 But two or three people in that walk, when I go backstage to check on, you saw the golden snitch. 0.98

01:42:55.000 And so...

01:42:58.000 Steve Reed, you know Steve Reed, our bald security, that badass looking guy on stage?

01:43:02.000 He'll come backstage and go, mate, they're calling me the snitch out there, man.

01:43:04.000 I think I'm you.

01:43:05.000 That poor guy pays for it.

01:43:09.000 Steve's a scary guy.

01:43:10.000 Dude, he's a great dude.

01:43:11.000 That guy is at the top of his game in security. 1.00

01:43:15.000 Oh, I trust that motherfucker. 1.00

01:43:16.000 His background is unbelievable. 1.00

01:43:17.000 I saw him one time in Las Vegas during a fight.

01:43:20.000 He was sitting on the floor.

01:43:22.000 Something's happened in the fight. 0.99

01:43:24.000 The crowd goes fucking bananas. 0.99

01:43:26.000 And everybody stands up on the floor. 0.99

01:43:29.000 Steve stands up. 0.99

01:43:30.000 And just motions, sit down, and the entire fucking section sat down. 0.99

01:43:35.000 200 plus people. 0.98

01:43:37.000 I'm like, dude, if you can, without even having to touch somebody, just stand up by your presence alone and control something like that, I mean, the best I've ever seen.

01:43:45.000 He's as legit as it gets.

01:43:47.000 Are you going to do anything to market this?

01:43:49.000 Well, that's getting to my story here.

01:43:51.000 It's not marketing, but let me finish the story here.

01:43:54.000 I'm in Chicago this year.

01:43:55.000 I think that was a pay-per-view.

01:43:56.000 You were there, right?

01:43:57.000 Yes.

01:43:57.000 So something happened, and I was late getting to the arena, and they had cut off kind of the loading dock.

01:44:02.000 I couldn't get to it.

01:44:03.000 So I had my oldest daughter with me, and so we're having a walkthrough where all the crowd's walking in, and, you know, dude's all over.

01:44:11.000 Golden Snitch! 0.99

01:44:12.000 Hey, can I get a picture of Golden Snitch? 0.99

01:44:14.000 My daughter's like, what the fuck's like? 0.99

01:44:16.000 What is going on? 1.00

01:44:17.000 How old's your daughter?

01:44:18.000 So she's 22. Okay.

01:44:21.000 So, two days ago, Christmas morning, I'm opening up presents.

01:44:26.000 So I get the presents from my daughters, the three of them, and my middle daughter's very artistic, and so they create these cool sculpted beer mugs, and there's four of them.

01:44:34.000 One of them's like Bald Guy Brewing Novitski something, and one of them says Golden Snitch Brewing Company.

01:44:40.000 So it's a cool looking thing, and she drew me a black and white kind of rendition of all four, which I'm going to hang up really cool. 0.90

01:44:47.000 So then my girlfriend's there, so she hands me the box, and she's been telling me all along, she goes, I got you the best fucking present ever in the history of presents. 0.96

01:44:53.000 I'm like, what the hell is this? 0.97

01:44:55.000 So I open up the box.

01:44:59.000 Oh my goodness.

01:45:00.000 And she's got this series of t-shirts.

01:45:03.000 And I think...

01:45:04.000 What size are you?

01:45:05.000 Large.

01:45:06.000 Large.

01:45:07.000 There we go, man.

01:45:08.000 So you...

01:45:09.000 Since you created it, you literally and figuratively have to wear it now.

01:45:13.000 Dude.

01:45:16.000 This is outrageous.

01:45:17.000 So that picture...

01:45:19.000 There's some...

01:45:21.000 There we go, baby. .

01:45:27.000 Ladies and gentlemen, the circle is closed.

01:45:32.000 Look at that!

01:45:33.000 Come on! 0.61

01:45:36.000 You look like a boot on this or something, man.

01:45:39.000 That picture is taken in Moscow.

01:45:43.000 I think I can say this.

01:45:45.000 Hopefully they'll let me back in.

01:45:47.000 It's out in front of KGB or FSB headquarters.

01:45:51.000 So that building in the background is...

01:45:53.000 KGB, now known as FSB. Oh, wow.

01:45:57.000 Yeah, so I posted a picture.

01:45:59.000 She got me like 20 shirts.

01:46:01.000 I put them on private Instagram, Facebook.

01:46:03.000 Everybody in the world is like, take my money, man.

01:46:05.000 Where can I get one?

01:46:06.000 Guess what I'm wearing at the weigh-ins tomorrow.

01:46:08.000 All right.

01:46:12.000 You guys created it.

01:46:13.000 You gotta own it now.

01:46:14.000 I got one for Schaub, too.

01:46:15.000 You can throw it on.

01:46:16.000 Schaub's mad at you.

01:46:17.000 Is he? 0.95

01:46:17.000 Yeah, he called you the golden rat now. 0.95

01:46:19.000 He's changed the name.

01:46:20.000 I thought maybe you'd have him in here.

01:46:22.000 He's misinformed.

01:46:23.000 He thinks, first of all, that you were an employee of USADA. Oh, there you go.

01:46:27.000 And that now you're an employee of the UFC. He's misinformed about that.

01:46:31.000 And I think he likes to call skeptical.

01:46:34.000 He's skeptical hippo. 0.98

01:46:36.000 I am skeptical as well, but I... One thing that I've learned from doing this podcast over the years is that there's no fucking way. 0.90

01:46:45.000 It's impossible to know everything.

01:46:48.000 It is impossible.

01:46:50.000 And you have to rely on the expertise of the people who have spent a lifetime studying these things.

01:46:57.000 It's very important.

01:46:58.000 Here's another thing.

01:47:00.000 There's no way these people could be lying about this and it wouldn't massively damage their career going forward.

01:47:08.000 They'd be done.

01:47:09.000 Someone would find out.

01:47:11.000 Someone would get to them.

01:47:12.000 The other scientists would out them.

01:47:14.000 There would be studies done.

01:47:15.000 There would be papers done.

01:47:16.000 The internet would find out about it.

01:47:17.000 Everybody would know.

01:47:18.000 There's no way.

01:47:20.000 It's pretty unprecedented in writing with the lack of these studies, the Rechenko one being the—am I saying it even right? 1.00

01:47:27.000 How do you say it?

01:47:27.000 Rechenko.

01:47:28.000 Rechenko.

01:47:29.000 It's pretty unprecedented that they would put these absolutes in writing.

01:47:34.000 I think they looked at it very hard and detailed, and obviously they weren't quick in turning it around.

01:47:39.000 We would have loved this decision to be made a lot earlier, so we could have rooted and vetted it out with Nevada.

01:47:45.000 But they did indeed, you know, sign their names to these pretty absolute statements.

01:47:50.000 And what else can the UFC and I do when these experts are putting those absolutes out there?

01:47:56.000 And I get that people go, oh, what else can the UFC do?

01:47:59.000 You've got to understand, folks, this would be career suicide.

01:48:02.000 This is...

01:48:04.000 This is cutting-edge science we're talking about. 0.99

01:48:08.000 There's too many people that would have a vested interest in calling bullshit. 0.99

01:48:13.000 They don't fuck around when it comes to these things. 0.98

01:48:16.000 The people that are at the front of the line when it comes to catching people on these things and the science that they're imploring, that they're involved with, you can't guess on the outside with no education. 0.99

01:48:30.000 It's just not wise.

01:48:32.000 And this is what I keep seeing over and over again. 0.99

01:48:34.000 It's people that have some knowledge, a little bit of knowledge, and they're pretending that they have a PhD in this shit. 0.97

01:48:44.000 For those that want to do more detective work, go read McLaren's written decision on John's July 2018 test. 0.98

01:48:55.000 Go read the Rechenkov study on the DHCMT and the metabolites, and go read the recent clomiphene study where it shows this chlorinated substance.

01:49:05.000 It's pulsing.

01:49:06.000 It goes away, comes back higher than before, goes away, comes back lower, goes away, comes back higher.

01:49:11.000 Crazy stuff.

01:49:12.000 Okay, are we good?

01:49:15.000 When can someone get one of these?

01:49:17.000 She only made about 15 of them for me. 1.00

01:49:19.000 Get the fuck out of here, man. 0.99

01:49:20.000 You gotta sell these. 0.99

01:49:22.000 You have to sell these.

01:49:24.000 Maybe do something for charity or something.

01:49:27.000 YoungJamie.com.

01:49:28.000 Yeah, someone needs to sell these.

01:49:29.000 We can talk.

01:49:30.000 But then it's not exclusive.

01:49:31.000 You want to have the exclusive shirt where nobody else can get them.

01:49:33.000 I don't want anything exclusive.

01:49:35.000 I'm not into that, man.

01:49:36.000 Alright, Jeff, thank you very much.

01:49:38.000 I appreciate the opportunity.

01:49:39.000 Thanks for coming on here and clarifying.

01:49:40.000 Please, folks, please have an open mind.

01:49:43.000 Please. 0.99

01:49:43.000 I know you want to call bullshit. 0.99

01:49:45.000 There's times. 0.98

01:49:46.000 There's times to call bullshit, but there's times to recognize that this is a complicated issue and that we've laid it out as... 0.97

01:49:53.000 I'm pretty convinced. 0.93

01:49:55.000 Appreciate it, Joe. 0.98

01:49:56.000 And I'm dumb. 0.99

01:49:57.000 So, you might be smarter than me. 1.00

The Joe Rogan Experience - November 02, 2010

JRE MMA Show #53 with Jeff Novitzky

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript