According to Dan Hooker, City Kickboxing’s finest were still mulling how best to respond to information that they believed implicated Islam Makhachev in cheating at UFC 284.
Then Hooker pulled out his phone. Turned out, it was quite easy to get the whole world’s attention about an accusation of illegal IV rehydration by the UFC lightweight champion. Ultimately, though, the accusation created more confusion and didn’t change the official result for Makhachev, who defeated Hooker’s teammate, UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at the February pay-per-view event.
“I think it’s like out there that whoever the nurse was got in touch with our team, and that was like going around our team,” Hooker said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “[Alexander Volkanovski] is just the nicest guy in the world, you know what I mean? He’s not going to go there and say anything. Even Eugene’s thinking, ‘How should we approach this?’
“I said, ‘Hold my beer boys, I’ll show you how this is done. I know how to get the people going.’”
With a series of fiery tweets, Hooker alleged Makhachev had hired a nurse to intravenously rehydrate him, a practice that’s been illegal since 2015 without a therapeutic-use exemption or is “determined to be medically justified and within the standard of care by a licensed physician and administered by a licensed medical professional,” per the UFC’s anti-doping partner, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. In 2019, the standard was changed from a near-complete ban to allow medically justified IVs.
Makhachev’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, responded to Hooker’s tweets in a quickly-deleted message of his own that said “any fighter under the UFC banner can take 2-3 liters of IV as long as it’s done by a nurse or professional.”
The Combat Sport Commission of Western Australia, which regulated UFC 284, doesn’t allow IV rehydration, but in a statement, it said the commission had “no conclusive evidence” that any of its rules were broken.
Makhachev declined to comment on Hooker’s allegations, telling a Russian media outlet “some fighters are trying to push this narrative, but the UFC and USADA have no issues with me.”
No disciplinary action was initiated against Makhachev by the UFC, USADA or the Australian athletic commission. Despite this fact, Hooker still believes the lightweight champion broke the rules, even if he didn’t mean to.
“There’s definitely something there, you know what I mean? Just because you don’t have...I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, or why it’s not why it didn’t go any further,” he said. “Maybe they didn’t have the evidence to get it over the line. But ... where there’s smoke, there’s fire. O.J. Simpson’s walking around, you know what I mean? Would you invite him to your family barbecue? Probably not.
“In my opinion, Islam Makhachev took an IV. That’s, like, my opinion. I feel like it potentially might have been like a genuine misunderstanding of the rules. We saw from like my outburst, and then USADA’s clarification and then the backlash, there’s still a lot of like misunderstanding about the actual rule. I couldn’t even tell you the actual rule there.
“So USADA said it’s absolutely fine if you get a nurse to do it. But then like most commissions, it comes down to like a local commission. It’s obviously not allowed in Australia, but ... it says if you get the commission’s approval. How many commissions are approving IV usage or who’s been given [one]? I feel like there’s still no real clarification around the topic.
“But yeah, now in hindsight, do I believe it like was truly like a malicious cheating thing? I think it might have been just, like a like a misunderstanding of the actual ruling, because it’s quite unclear. Like if USADA said something is all right, most people just think that’s all right then.”
Hooker later claimed the anti-doping agency was punishing him for speaking out by drug testing him more frequently. He also expected the UFC to punish him for creating such a stir. But asked on Wednesday whether that had taken place, he wasn’t sure.
“I can’t tell you that,” he said. “If I hadn’t said what I said, would anyone know what had transpired. Besides like dropping subliminal messages on the [Ariel] Helwani show, I don’t think anyone would have known what was going down. So do I regret saying that? There’s no way.
“If you’re facing my team, if you’re competing against my team, and you’re doing anything untoward, and I find out about it, I’m gonna put you on blast. I’m incredibly defensive over my team. You can attack me all you want. People can say whatever they want to say about me, or do whatever they wanna do about me. But if you go after my team, I’m gonna be the first one that’s throwing a shot.”
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