Makhachev fails USADA drug test, fight against Drew Dober canceled

Yet another fight was eliminated from what has become a snake-bit UFC show on FOX tomorrow.

The Islam Makhachev vs. Drew Dober fight is off because shortly after weigh-ins, UFC was informed by USADA that Makhachev had a potential anti-doping violation involving Meldonium, which is listed as of this year as a banned performance enhancing agent.

Meldonium was developed clinically for heart ailments like angina, but like insulin, was discovered to have performance enhancing properties.  Like Insulin, it has been listed since the start of the year as a banned Metabolic Modulator.  It is the same drug the tennis star Maria Sharapova was recently suspended for.

This marks the second fight on the show in the last three days to be canceled due to the anti-doping policy, the other being the Lyoto Machida vs. Dan Henderson fight, as Machida was suspended for admitting usage of a substance that he didn’t realize was on the banned list which contained DHEA.

Last week the scheduled main event with Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson full through due to a training injury suffered by Ferguson.

The news was first reported by Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting and confirmed by a UFC release tonight.