On November 12, on the main card of the massively hyped UFC 205, former middleweight champion Chris Weidman will take on streaking former Olympian Yoel Romero. The winner of this bout could well receive the next crack at Michael Bisping’s middleweight title.
In advance of this high-stakes middleweight showdown, Weidman has thrown a handful of accusations Romero’s way, most of which surround the former Olympian’s early-2016 brush with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Though this controversy was ultimately deemed to be the result of a tainted supplement, Weidman still has doubts that Romero is a clean fighter.
In a recent exclusive interview with BJ Penn Radio, Weidman explained his skepticism.
“I feel like the tainted supplement excuse is BS,” he said. “I don’t buy it. I feel like every time someone fails a test they wait a couple of weeks and meet with their management team or lawyers and they figure out a supplement that could possibly have the same thing as what they got caught for and they say ‘Oh this is what I took, I bought it from GNC’.”
“So they expect USADA to give them a lesser suspension,” he continued. “Now, other fighters who are clean are afraid to take supplements because they think they’re gonna fail.”
Apparently, Weidman’s comments have reached Romero’s ears. The talented Cuban recently took to Instagram to share a video of himself undergoing a USADA-administered drug test.
“For the people that doubt me and for the people that support me,” the post said. “I have been tested every month since USADA has been with the UFC.”
Romero later reaffirmed this point on Twitter, and even went so far as to express doubts that Weidman was receiving the same level of testing.
https://twitter.com/YoelRomeroMMA/status/786968325007945728
Needless to say, Romero is definitely undergoing rigorous testing from the UFC’s anti-doping partner. That said, he still boasts one of the most impressive physiques in MMA, as this recent post to Instagram shows.
Do you share Weidman’s doubts about Romero, or do you think it’s time the former champ let it go and accepted that Romero is a clean fighter? Sound off, PENN nation!