Mike Richman is a longtime veteran of Bellator MMA and after a loss to current bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas, was notified that he failed a drug test. Richman will be competing in the main event of Legacy Fighting Alliance 2, fighting for the first time since publicly admitting that he cheated by failing the drug test.
“I just felt like that, once it came out, I wanted to tell people right away,” Richman told MMA Junkie. “It felt like the right thing to do. I thought that with the little integrity I had left, I had to own up to it. I didn’t want to hide behind excuses or blame it on supplements.”
Once the failed drug test became public, Richman had a lot of work to do in order to repair the relationships he fractured by using illegal substances.
“They (his coaches) were definitely disappointed in me,” Richman said. “I think in other instances maybe there is a coordinated effort with this kind of thing (between fighters and coaches), but I was the only one who knew. I think they saw the changes in that camp. I got bigger in size, put on more mass, and my strength and conditioning coach, he noticed that. But people don’t want to question you. They think, maybe he’s eating more or getting more protein.”
Legacy Fighting Alliance 2 takes place on Friday, January 20 from the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota with Mike Richman and Lazar Stojadinovic headlining.
