Matt Riddle was released from the UFC last week after testing posititve for marijuana after a fight for the second time in a year, and to make matters worse for himself he now appears to have completely burned his bridges with the promotion.
In an interview with Ariel Helwani on ‘The MMA Hour’ show this week Riddle claims that one way or another the UFC were looking for an excuse to fire him.
“I wasn’t expecting to fail that drug test. You know, I quit 21 days out,” Riddle said. “But after me calling out Joe Silva because he didn’t give me Dan Hardy, and then me not going out there and brawling, and failing the drug test, they were going to fire me. So whatever, I’m good. I got fight offers. I’m good to go.”
Riddle goes on to state that increased levels of creatine were discovered during his drug test and he claims that’s not possible since he’s not taken the substance since he was a teenager.
“If didn’t fail a drug test, and something was added to my urine, like Creatine and THC, or something like that, then I would like to know. Because I just think it was just really convenient.”
If Riddle had any intention of returning to the UFC then accusing them of essentially setting him up like this probably wouldn’t be a great idea, but as it turns out the 27 year-old, who admits to taking up to an eight of marijuana a day for ‘medicinal purposes’ is happy to cut ties with the sport’s leading promotion.
“What I see happening is, a year or two from now the UFC calls me back after I’ve won probably like five or six fights, hopefully. And I’ll probably, at the time, say, ‘No.’ Because I really don’t like the direction they’re taking.”
Quite frankly, not for the first time in his career, Riddle’s comments here seem foolish in the extreme and lashing out at his former employer has only made a bad situation much worse for him.
