UFC veteran Will Chope heard about One Championship’s plan to handle drug testing through the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and subsequently shared his opinion about the matter, claiming a potential conflict of interest and lack of transparency.
This is what Chope originally wrote in a Facebook post, provided by Bloody Elbow:
If you read the article, you’ll realize the title is bullshit.
Supposedly they will be doing tests according to WADA standards. That doesn’t mean WADA is doing them.
It means their own officials will be doing the tests. Just. Like ONE hires their own refs, and judges for their shows….. It’s bullshit and biased. If ONE wants to ever get to the level of the UFC then they need a 3rd party to sanction their tests and shows….. But I doubt that will ever happen. ONE has an agenda. And as long as they are sanctioning themselves they can favor gyms and fighters.
I’m going to drop some inside knowledge and tell you the urine tests get sent to a lab in Taiwan. The doctor who tests these is a paid doctor that’s been working with ONE for years. Everyone knows ONE athletes are juiced. But this style of testing will allow ONE to hide results of guys they don’t want to be dirty and to throw guys that they don’t care about that are dirty under the bus. You can’t self-regulate privately and be non-biased and if you do self regulate it has to be public…….which it’s not! #F—kONE!
One Championship must’ve disliked what was written by Chope, as they allegedly sent the fighter a legal letter, despite the fact the One Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong posted a positive sounding comment in the original post.
One Championship did send a legal notice to Chope demanding that the fighter remove the post or face legal repercussions.
Chope, in a statement to Bloody Elbow, believes that he did nothing wrong in regards to what was posted on Facebook:
“I don’t think I did anything wrong. I was just pointing things out that I thought was weird. Like I said, I don’t actually even care about steroids. I know it’s kind of rampant in Asian MMA, but my problem is just with the transparency of the organization. We don’t believe I can be sued under the US law, but in Thailand, the defamation laws are fickle. Not worth the risk to leave the post up.”
There has been no public comment from One Championship on the legal letter sent to the UFC veteran.
