Midnight Mania! Sexually Transmitted PEDs?

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) oversees the drug testing of many sports and organizations, including UFC. After an athlete fails a drug test, they have the option to go into arbitration and contest the result, which can often result in a reduced sentence if sufficient evidence is provided. A common reason for a failed test is the tainted supplement, but there have been more varied excuses like the infamous tainted gas station dick pills and bad Mexican meat.

Here’s a new one: sexually transmitted banned substances. Today, USADA found two athletes — boxer Virginia Fuchs and softball player Madilyn Nickles — “not at fault” for various banned substances. In both cases, the female athletes’ male partners were receiving “therapeutic doses” of the assorted metabolites that caused the failed tests.

Both failed tests came out-of-competition.

Travis T. Tygart, Chief Executive Officer of USADA, wrote in a statement for both athletes, “While the World Anti-Doping Code requires that this no fault finding be considered a violation and be publicly announced, we strongly believe this case and others like it, including meat contamination and prescription medication contamination cases, should be considered no violation. We will continue to advocate for changes to the World Anti-Doping Code so that where there is no intent to cheat and no performance benefit, an athlete should not face any violation or unnecessary public attention.”

UFC Senior VP of Athlete Health and Performance — AKA “The Golden Snitch” — Jeff Novitzky took to Twitter to explain that UFC’s testing has thresholds that should help prevent incidents like these.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am now eagerly awaiting the day when some fighter blames his/her spouse for their trenbolone-riddled urine. Give it a year or two!

Insomnia

Francis Ngannou with the THROWBACK OF THE YEAR!

This sounds like a fun grappling match!

For anyone in search of headbutt knockouts and general chaos, World Lethwei Championship has now scheduled a return to action.

Matt Hughes is making progress towards his recovery.

There’s always something to be learned from watching Saenchai work.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Combate Americas released champion Gustavo Lopez so that he could fill in for Ray Borg this weekend opposite Merab Dvalishvili, which is always nice to see. Here’s a clip of him at work:

I don’t know if the backstory provided here is true. What I do know is this: 1) throwing kicks in a street fight is stupid unless you know how to kick, and 2) flip-flops come off before the punches start flying.

Counter the counter:

Random Land

In my opinion, this is one of the neatest clips I’ve found.

Midnight Music: Thursday night jazz courtesy of the legendary Horace Silver Quintet!

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.