Chael Sonnen is as good a person to ask about Anderson Silva’s failed drug test as anyone given that not only has he fought the Brazilian superstar twice, but he’s also been busted for using performance enhancing drugs himself in the past.
Speaking from experience during an interview with ‘Off The Record’ yesterday, Sonnen, who’s now retired from the sport after being handed a two year suspension for a failed drug test in 2014, urged Silva to come clean if he had used performance enhancing drugs prior to his comeback fight with Nick Diaz at UFC 183 on Saturday night.
“If he did this, I would encourage him and anybody else, much like me, just come out and say you did it,” Sonnen told Michael Landsberg on the TSN show. “The door is still open to come out and just tell us what happened. Say, ‘Listen, it was still in my system. I’m busted. I’m sorry.’ Lay it out, fade to black, and roll the credits.”
Silva has however issued a statement denying using PED’s, something that Sonnen himself did last year before eventually admitting that he had in fact being using a number of banned substances including human growth hormone.
“I can tell you, I wish he wouldn’t have said anything yet,” Sonnen said of Silva’s statement. “He needs to put a little time between – let me talk about me, and not Anderson. I wanted to come clean. I wanted to tell everything I can, but when you’re confronted as a human being with shame, when you know you’re wrong, it’s very difficult to fully express everything. Now I eventually got there, but I’ll tell you first hand it took me a while. My first reaction was, ‘Hey, this is my business, and I don’t want to talk about it.’ I came through it, and I think if Anderson puts some time in between, he might change his stance.
“He might also be of the mind that he didn’t do it. Let’s let him work through that. I wasn’t there. I can tell you, the lab that was involved that did this answers to one person, and that is Sen. John McCain. This is a lab funded by the United States government. If someone were to come in and say this lab got it wrong, this lab is going to defend itself vigorously. It is not worth the fight.”
