Josh Barnett has been a force to be reckoned with in both grappling and mma for some time. However for the last year his career has been neither here nor there.
13 months ago he was pinged with an alleged drug violation – that was in December 2016. Still Barnett, 40, won’t agree to any settlements.
CroCop has been one person vocal as to how exactly he felt how USADA fooled him.
“They were caught after the fight,” Cro Cop said. “So they put the money in their pocket, they fought, they earned the money and they get the same sentence like I did. It’s not fair. But let’s not talk about it anymore. I just had to mention it. From my point of view, that is not justice.”
“Offering a fighter that the suspension will be reduced if I snitched on someone, it is below every level,” Cro Cop said. “That’s how I see it. If I’m guilty punish me, but don’t come with that kind of offer. And if you punish me for being completely negative, which means i didn’t use any prohibited substance, you cannot give me the same punish [as others].”
Barnett has said to mmajunkie:
“I end up no matter what at the mercy of USADA,” the veteran UFC heavyweight said. “And to be honest, I don’t trust them in any way, shape or form. I have no interest to work with them or be a part of their program.
“I would be willing to do anything else but work with USADA at this point. When you can’t trust someone, what are you supposed to do? Continue to give them the opportunity to break your trust? They don’t seem responsible enough to have oversight over my career.”
Barnett is alleged to have taken ostarine a selective androgen receptor modulator that mimics anabolic agents. This is a thing that got Tim Means and Amanda Ribas pinged as well. Means got a reduced suspension due to tainted supplement while Ribas got a 2 year term.
This is not to say that Barnett is against doping testing:
“I’m not against the idea and the spirit of USADA, or what an independent drug testing program is for – not at all,” Barnett said. “I don’t have an issue with any of these things, and even though I took a supplement that was tainted, I’m OK with having to go through the process to test the supplements. I’m totally fine with that.“The only thing I protest to is being hammered after the fact, after finding that I am innocent of any wrongdoing, and instead of moving on and considering the time spent researching and finding the data and appealing my case as enough – the extra efforts to come after me, that’s where I draw the line.”
Josh Barnett Interested In More Grappling, Reveals How He Subbed Dean Lister After 17 Years
Since Barnett had a doping violation in 2001 after UFC 34 now he’s looking at a potential 4 year ban.
Barnett said the USADA initially proposed a 2 year ban however the same two-year suspension came back. After he and his manager protested, the term was amended to 18 months, retroactive to his temporary suspension date.
“They have a real insistence of trying to mete out punishment,” Barnett said of USADA. “Despite everything we’ve done and the initial process of dealing with them, they at some point turned a corner and became very stringent, hardcore, inflexible, and really, unwilling to continue on the same path they initiated. It seems they want to erect a stake and burn me at it.”
Even though a 4 year suspension would mean the end of his career Barnett is adamant he’d rather keep on fighting:
“I’m not done fighting,” Barnett said. “I’d still like to compete. But I want to train and compete and have a reasonable and understandable process to the whole thing.”
