Stephan Bonnar was a favorite of mine on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. In fact, I even rooted for him in his now-legendary fight against Forrest Griffin in the TUF 1 finale. Since losing to Griffin in April of last year, Bonnar has had an interesting run in UFC.
Hoger gave Bonnar a run for his money, which sort of surprised me, due to seeing more of Sam’s skills as an asshole on TUF 1 than his skills as a fighter. Overall this one was a bit lackluster, but Bonnar’s last fight was a tough act to follow.
This was a bit of a shock. Irvin was being hyped as a potential threat to the Light Heavyweight title at the time and a win against Bonnar would’ve brought him one step closer to a match with Chuck Liddell. Bonnar’s victory by Kimura was very impressive and made most people forget about his last fight.
This decision has been debated by MMA fans for months. While neither fighter looked particularly great in this fight, Jardine clearly gave Bonnar a serious beating. Perhaps a split decision would have eased the minds of the fans, but Bonnar gladly accepted the victory.
This was the biggest pile of shit fight I’ve ever seen in UFC. Dana White needs to take the video of this f*cking borefest and burn it, bury it, and cover it in concrete. Bonnar was no match to a man who doesn’t even know how to fight. Evans spent three rounds dry-humping Bonnar, and pissing off the fans. Come to think of it, Dana White should follow my advice about the video with Rashad Evans as well.
It would have been impossible to recapture the magic of their first fight, but this was still a good brawl. My first thought when I saw Bonnar was, “wow, he looks like he’s fighting Heavyweight tonight.” Which leads us to…
MMAWeekly reported on Wednesday that Stephan Bonnar, “tested positive for an anabolic steroid after his fight against Forrest Griffin at UFC 62 on August 26th.” According to the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s drug testing results the substance in Bonnar’s system was Boldenone Metabolite. Boldenone is an anabolic steroid that is, “intended for use only by veterinarians, specifically to help rehabilitate injured horses.”
According to Wikipedia, “It is a poor drug of choice for any athlete who will be subject to a blood test due to its long metabolic half-life. Trace amounts of the drug can easily be detected for months after discontinued use.” That took me mere seconds to get that information. I guess Stephan isn’t as smart as he would like us all to think he is.
Bonnar joins Matt Lawton (of Major League Baseball fame) in a very exclusive club of complete f*cking idiots that have been busted for using Boldenone. However, Bonnar is not the first high profile fighter to get busted for anabolic steroids in Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim “The Maine-iac” Sylvia tested positive for Stanozolol in 2003. Not only was he suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, he was also stripped of his title.
Bonnar currently faces a pending suspension and a fine up to $250,000. To put that into perspective, his purse for UFC 62 was $16,000. According to MMAWeekly, “The length of the suspension can be whatever the NSAC deems appropriate, but the suspensions have ranged from three to twelve months in past instances of mixed martial artists and boxers testing positive for banned substances.”
The irony is that even before his drug test results came back positive, Bonnar had already been medically suspended for six months due to a broken right thumb. Either way it’s unlikely that he would have fought again this year.
Tim Sylvia did the right thing when he got busted. He owned up to his mistakes like a man and fought for damn near three years to get redemption. It looks like Stephan Bonnar has a long, hard road ahead of him.
