Josh Thompson claims the UFC tried to pay off Nate Diaz for USADA issue (Video)
By Amy Kaplan
Josh Thompson just dropped a huge bombshell that could rock the legitimacy of The United States Anti-Doping Agency, if true. And that's a big IF.
While Thompson was discussing the lawsuit between Mark Hunt and the UFC. He alleged the UFC knew his UFC 200 opponent Brock Lesnar was on steroids but let him fight anyway. Hunt lost the lawsuit, but it's brought up topics surrounding how much the UFC knows about such things.
That's when Thompson brought up Nate Diaz.
“Look what they were trying to do with Nate Diaz," Thomspon said on the ‘Weighing In’ podcast. "He tested positive, and they were like, ‘You know what, we’ll get it all sorted out after.’ And Nate said, ‘F**k you, we’ll get it sorted out now.’ That means that they knew that Nate tested, and they were still gonna let him fight… So I would not say that they have not tried to do that, or would not do it.”
Josh Thompson claims the UFC 'tried to offer money' to make Nate Diaz's USADA issue go away
Diaz tested positive for steroids ahead of his UFC 244 BMF title fight with Jorge Masvidal in Nov. 2019.
“When I’m looking at (Lesnar), I mean I’m just thinking to myself that this was early in USADA. I don’t know. I don’t wanna say that they knew, but I wanna say that the history – which I can only give you that case – is that they tried to have Nate still fight, and ‘We’ll deal with it after.’… I know people in Nate’s camp that said they even tried to offer money. They tried to like, ‘We’ll take care of it all afterwards, no big deal. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.’”
Diaz was later cleared after it was found that the failure was due to a tainted supplement. He would go on to lose the fight via TKO after the doctor stopped the fight due to a cut.