2015 and 2016 have been rough for Nova Uniao.

TJ Dillashaw defeated Renan Barao in dominating fashion twice to win and then subsequently defend the UFC bantamweight championship, and Conor McGregor KO’d Jose Aldo in 13 seconds to claim the UFC featherweight championship.

In addition, UFC commentator Joe Rogan stated that Aldo looked ‘deflated’ in his fight against McGregor, insinuating that Aldo was smaller given the USADA random drug testing policy.

Given all of that, Nova Uniao head coach Andre Pederneiras spoke to Portal do Vale Tudo to refute claims that his fighters have been losing as a result of no longer being able to use banned substances.

“I think people are butthurt at a team that remained in Brazil, kept training and kept picking up poor people and turning them into champions. It hurts them too much, because they were brought up at high level gyms since they were children and now they are losing to Brazilians who had nothing to do with that.”

“Who do you think has more athletes capable of winning an Olympic medal, Brazil or USA? Which one you think has more laboratories that can create substances that can’t be detected in antidoping tests? That’s my answer to those people.”

“They accuse me of something they have much more knowledge about than I do. They have so many Olympic champions, we have a few. If we had access to that, it would be some old procedure to a country that has been winning medals in so many sports for a long time.”