{"id":806879,"date":"2026-07-17T21:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806879\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:23:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:23:20","slug":"busted-ufc-title-contender-who-fought-everyone-from-jiri-to-daniel-cormier-just-popped-for-epo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806879\/","title":{"rendered":"Busted! UFC title contender who fought everyone from Jiri to Daniel Cormier just popped for EPO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Looks like \u201cNo Time\u201d will now have lots of time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight title challenger Volkan Oezdemir tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO) in both urine and blood samples collected during out-of-competition drug tests on Feb. 16, 2026, and March 5, 2026, in Le Mouret, Switzerland, according to an update from the promotion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The UFC drug testing program is administered by Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cThat was my decision and it was the biggest mistake of my life,\u201d Oezdemir wrote on social media. \u201cOn March 5, I was informed that my test had come back positive. In that moment, the illusion was shattered, and my reality changed. But in a way, it was also a relief. I decided to tell the UFC everything. I cooperated immediately. I did the same with CSAD.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The 36-year-old Oezdemir will not be eligible to return until June 17, 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looks like \u201cNo Time\u201d will now have lots of time. Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight title&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-806879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806879","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=806879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}