{"id":703383,"date":"2026-05-30T01:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703383\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T01:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:58:08","slug":"ufc-macau-newcomer-jose-souza-opens-up-on-difficulties-during-doping-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703383\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Macau newcomer Jose Souza opens up on \u2018difficulties\u2019 during doping suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jose Souza makes his UFC debut almost three years after first signing with the promotion – and after his life turned upside down due to a positive drug test that led to a long doping suspension<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Souza – also known as Jose Henrique – is slated to face fellow UFC debutant Ding Meng on Saturday\u2019s Fight Night show in Macau, China, and he opened up on the troubled times he endured since testing positive for two metabolites of the anabolic agent nandrolone back in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really difficult,\u201d Souza told MMA Fighting. \u201cI went through a lot of difficulties, a lot of bad thoughts, even thinking that I might never be able to fight in the UFC, but that only gave me more strength. It gave me the motivation to think, \u2018I want to be there again, and I\u2019m going to make it happen.\u2019 And I did. I spent that time away working, waiting, training, giving my best every single day. That\u2019s what gave me the strength to keep going, because I needed a goal, and my goal was to make it to the UFC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Souza said he has never taken illegal substances in order to enhance his performance in the cage, but claims he was advised by a doctor to use Deca-Durabolin to recover from a knee injury. He had fought on Dana White\u2019s Contender Series in August 2022, losing a decision, and was preparing to return to the Shooto Brazil cage in February 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had fought on the Contender Series, had gone through drug testing there with no issues,\u201d Souza said. \u201cI was clean, I had never taken anything. That\u2019s the truth, I had never taken anything. I left the Contender, got out of the octagon and Sean Shelby and Dana White came to my locker room and said, \u2018We like you. Go get a few fights outside and we\u2019ll bring you into the promotion.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight after that I fought at Shooto Brasil, and during camp maybe two or three weeks before the fight, I injured my knee training wrestling. I went to the doctor and he told me, \u2018You don\u2019t fight in promotions with drug testing so let\u2019s use this medication.\u2019 That\u2019s when he recommended Deca-Durabolin to me, something used post-surgery that works very quickly. That was it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shooto Brasil is sanctioned by the Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission (CABMMA) and fighters are subject to drug testing, but the commission doesn\u2019t tests all fighters on the card.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The doctor] gave me the injection, and then shortly after that I fought at Shooto,\u201d Souza said. \u201cI knocked the guy out, [Andre Pederneiras] \u2018Dede\u2019 called Sean Shelby and said, \u2018Look at this kid.\u2019 Right there, when I got out of the cage, \u2018Dede\u2019 said, \u2018You just signed with the UFC.\u2019 It was that whole emotional post-fight moment. After my fight, I went to Russia with a friend who was fighting in ACA, and on March 8, they went there to test me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Souza admitted he didn\u2019t disclose the use of the substance upon signing with the UFC and being first tested by USADA \u201cbecause the doctor had told me it would be out of my system in seven days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t tell Dede [about the use] and that was my mistake,\u201d Souza said. \u201cThe blame is completely mine, I put all of it on my shoulders because I could have talked to him beforehand and he would have guided me toward better options. But I was thinking, \u2018I want to fight, I need to fight, these guys are watching me.\u2019 And that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the UFC welterweight, \u201cthe doctor who recommended [Deca-Durabolin] didn\u2019t want to get involved\u201d in his defense in front of USADA, so he accepted the two-year suspension. A year later, Pederneiras asked for his release to be able to make money fighting elsewhere before trying to return to the UFC.<\/p>\n

Souza stayed active during suspension, competing for promotions that did not follow USADA\u2019s bans. First, he defeated UFC veteran Leonardo Guimaraes in a boxing match, and months later scored back-to-back wins under the Centurion FC banner in 2024 to eventually earn a call back to the UFC in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The UFC] had given me their word that after that year they would bring me back, and that\u2019s exactly what they did,\u201d Souza said. \u201cThey honored their word, and now I\u2019m back. And you can be sure that I\u2019ll be ready to show why I deserve to be in the UFC.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Nova Uniao fighter had multiple matchups cancelled earlier this year, going from fights with Eric Nolan to Nikolay Veretennikov to Charles Radtke before ultimately agreeing to facing 35-9 Chinese veteran Ding in enemy territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a lot from it all,\u201d Souza said. \u201cI needed to go through that. The first time I signed with the UFC, I don\u2019t think I was ready. I was a very young kid, I had no real experience in life. I learned a lot from fighting on the Contender Series, but I still had a lot of maturing to do as a person and as an athlete. Today, I\u2019m sure that I\u2019m much more prepared to be a UFC fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jose Souza makes his UFC debut almost three years after first signing with the promotion – and after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-703383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}