Nate Diaz hasn’t fought inside the UFC’s Octagon since his razor close decision loss to Conor McGregor. In the aftermath of that fight, as just confirmed by the head of UFC drug testing for USADA, Nate violated the doping policy right there on the spot when he whipped out his CBD vape pen and starting hitting it at the UFC 202 post-fight press conference.
USADA noticed the policy violation, but according to Jeff Novitzky, he actually let Nate slide on his doping violation, out of fairness.
That’s right folks, despite the rule being clearly defined, USADA used their own make-sense abilities to say Nate would get a pass, and they opted not to violate him at all for the infraction.
Novitzky breaks down the situation to Joe Rogan, and later confirmed that they changed the rules, and are now calling their new policy, the Nate Diaz rule.
So, not only did Nate get a much needed pass, he also got an official USADA drug testing rule change named after him.
Here’s the USADA head’s comments:
“After a year and a half there was a couple rules that we changed,” said the USADA head, as transcribed by MMAimports.com. “The first one there was kind of a funny story behind this too. I don’t know if you remember when Nate fought Conor the second time. He goes to the press conference after and takes out a vape pen.”
“And someone asked him what he was doing and he said it was CBD.
“At the time, the in competition window where CBD was prohibited lasted until four hours after the conclusion of the fight, and he was clearly within that time period. So, USADA contacted me and said, ‘Hey, technically Nate was in violation of this.’ And I said look, ‘That was not the intent of the rule.’ …
“Nevertheless it was prohibited in competition…
“But we identified a problem with the rules, in that when Nate finished that fight with Conor, USADA came to the post fight medical tent… and got a sample from him. He then went to the press conference after, and took the CBD.
“What I said was look, you can’t punish him. You have the sample that shows what was in his system. Yes, CBD was prohibited in competition, but you have a sample to show whether or not he was using it.
“It’s clear that he was using it after the fight. We just put those extra four hours in there, with the thought of if a fighter finishes a fight and USADA isn’t able to get to him. Say, he gets in an ambulance right away or goes to the hospital, you increase that window just incase they can’t get them.
“Come to find out, USADA can always get to that fighter… So we changed that rule. And now, basically the rule is, the in competition period ends with a collection immediately after the fight, or USADA has a reasonable amount of time after the fight.”
And there birth the Nate Diaz rule. Fighters are now free to hit CBD thanks to Stockton’s favorite younger brother.
Here’s the full dialogue between Rogan and the USADA head:
Thoughts?
