There’s been yet another late scratch to Saturday’s UFC on Fox 19 event, as MMAFighting.com‘s Ariel Helwani reports that Islam Makhachev was flagged for a banned substance following Friday’s weigh-in event, and his bout with Drew Dober is off.
There’s been no statement from the UFC as of yet, but it would mean the second USADA-related scratch to the event this week after Lyoto Machida’s admittance to using a banned substance in an out of competition test.
Makhachev, teammate of returning main card lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov, was slated to return for the first time since suffering his sole career loss, a KO defeat against Adriano Martins last October. Makhachev had already missed weight on Friday by a half pound, but the fight is now no longer going to happen at all.
Penick’s Analysis: If results just came in on Friday it would mean he had been randomly tested at some point in the last week, unless it’s a situation similar to Machida where Makhachev disclosed something that was not allowed. We won’t know until the substance is revealed. Regardless, Dober should at least receive his show money for weighing in, but what happens with Makhachev remains to be seen.
UPDATE: BloodyElbow.com reports that Makhachev’s failure comes for the controversially banned Meldonium, making him the latest in a long line of Russian athletes this year to fail a test for the heart medication supplement since it went onto the banned list in January.
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