Duda Santana’s tenure in the UFC has come to an end.
Santana has failed a United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) drug test and has subsequently been released by the UFC according to her manager, Alex Davis. The manager believes Santana is innocent, but it will be hard to prove that to USADA, since the majority of the supplements she was using have been discarded.
“We believe in her innocence, but we have to follow what USADA determines and serve the suspension,” Davis said to MMA Fighting. “We did not appeal. We tried, but couldn’t find the origin of it because she had thrown out some of her supplements. ... She’s very talented and she will bounce back from this. We’ll not give up on her.”
Santana failed an out of competition drug test on February 11 of 2020 for “selective androgen receptor modulator LGD-4033.”
The manager also says that Santana “is very poor and ended up buying supplements from unreliable sources, resulting in another case of contaminated supplements.” Since the UFC reportedly released Santana from her contract, she could theoretically fight anywhere not under USADA jurisdiction or possibly return to the UFC in February of 2022.
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