UFC fighter says his sex life is the reason for failed drugs test

UFC newcomer Dequan Townsend has said that sex could have resulted in the positive test that earned him a six-month ban following his debut defeat against Dalcha Lungiambula last year – a fight he took at three days' notice.

Townsend claimed his positive test for cocaine and fentanyl metabolites could have been caused by “different sexual activities” in the build-up to his debut UFC defeat against Dalcha Lungiambula in June.

The middleweight, who took the fight at three days’ notice and later accepted a six-month ban from testers at the USADA, has admitted he was “hanging around the wrong crowd” but insisted there are “thousands of different ways that things can get into your system.”

Townsend suggested that he could have come into contact with the banned substances through his day job as a registered nurse and told MMA Fighting: “One of the most common ways is [through the] mucous membrane.”

“If you sleep with somebody or engage in any sexual activity with someone who is a user or who does what they do on the side or whatever, it can get into your system through sweat, different sexual activities.

There’s different ways it can get into your system. That’s one way. But as I said in general, it was three days’ notice...I obviously wasn’t aware or extra careful because I didn’t plan on fighting in the UFC.”

The 33-year-old completed a drug rehabilitation program while serving his sentence for the substances, which are not classified as performance enhancers under USADA rules.

“Me personally, I am not a drug user,” he insisted. “I don’t discriminate, I don’t judge anybody who does drugs personally. What they do in their free time is what they do in their free time.

I took the classes. I was mindful of the information that was given to me, and I just pretty much want to put the whole thing behind me.”

Townsend took the fight at the last minute after a long campaign to compete in the UFC following a seven-year professional career that included 17 wins by knockout or submission.

The Michigan fighter, known as the Tarantula, questioned the necessity of publishing certain drug test results, arguing: “There’s in-competition and out-of-competition, it’s completely different.

You can test for certain things out of competition, and it’s not publicized and they don’t consider it as a violation. That’s what I was told.

I’m not sure how that really works, I just feel like the in-competition tests should be the only ones that are released, and those are the ones that are truly important.

Unless it’s performance-enhancing drugs like steroids or other major situations where they shouldn’t be taken.”

He bullishly suggested that the publication of his results would spur him on when he fights Bevon Lewis at UFC Raleigh on Saturday.

“Obviously, when it was released, everybody has their comments, everybody has their opinions,” reflected Townsend.

“And I just let people think what they want to think. I use their opinions to fuel me as more motivation to overcome more obstacles, fight, be a better performer, and just get my hand raised.”