No. 12 in the UFC lightweight rankings, Benoit St. Denis, has no doubt that all the success of the division’s current champion, Islam Makhachev, is due to the systematic use of banned substances.
“As for Nurmagomedov’s team, I no longer have any doubts that they are loaded with doping like mules,” the Frenchman told Le Figaro. “They are smart about doping and know very well how to do it.”
“To give you an example, Makhachev was caught on meldonium. That’s the drug that got Russia suspended from the 2016 Olympics. And the reigning UFC champion was caught just in 2016!”
Earlier, American fighters Bobby Green and Sean O’Malley made similar accusations against the Russian, who tops the rankings of the UFC’s best fighters regardless of weight class.
In 2016, Islam Makhachev was suspended from participation in the UFC on FOX 19 tournament and disqualified by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency due to the detection of meldonium in his body, however, two months later, the Russian was fully exonerated because he took the drug after heart surgery, even before the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA included it in the list of banned substances.
Benoit Saint-Denis, 27, is riding a streak of five early wins in the UFC, having knocked out Matt Frevola as early as the first round in his last fight.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/33410-topovyj-legkoves-obvinil-islama-makhacheva-v-upotreblenii-dopinga.html?rand=19907
