Appearing on The Ultimate Fighter 7, Jesse Taylor made his way to this finals. However, the fighter was pulled from the show after an incident in Las Vegas. That being said, Taylor made his way back to The Ultimate Fighter: Redemption. There, Taylor made his way once again to the finals and defeated Dhiego Lima. Over a month later, Taylor was penalized with a one year suspension for testing positive for clomiphene.
Speaking to MMA Junkie, Dhiego Lima explained his emotions after learning about Taylor’s failed drug test.
“For our fight, he knew our anti-doping would only be a normal pee test. So he must have done a cycle for that. And then, one month later, he flunked with a post-cycle drug. Of course he was taking stuff to fight me.”
“It was a relief for me, to be honest.”
“That was on my mind – ‘Why was that guy so much stronger than me?’ I trained so hard, and the guy tossed me around like I was nothing? How? It’s not possible. I knew how strong he was in the house. So for me, it would be the same at the fight.
“I did what I had to do to win, but come fight time, he was like three times stronger than me. I got depressed, you know. I thought about the fight so much, and I couldn’t understand. I knew it. I told everyone after the fight that he was too strong, that there was no way that was possible. And there you go.”
Lima finished his thoughts by adding:
“It wasn’t just any fight. It was a finale. There was $250,000 (it actually ended up amounting to $290,000) on the line. I have three kids. I trained very hard for this fight. I suffered so much. Some days, I couldn’t even walk because I was training so hard. I knew about his strength. I knew about his wrestling. I prepared for everything. I trained with him for six weeks. He was on my team.
“I knew what I had to do to win the fight. I did everything right. I passed my post-fight tests. And then I hear the guy flunked a test a month later, knowing he did a cycle for my fight? This hurts me a lot. I suffered so much for this fight, and the guy cheats to beat me? It pisses me off.”
