Chael Sonnen on PFL’s recent bevy of PED suspensions: ‘I didn’t see a big problem with it’

Chael Sonnen believes the PFL doesn’t have a PED problem.

Despite recently signing lineal heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou to a landmark deal, the PFL had a tough run of things over the past month. First, in mid-May, nine fighters, including former heavyweight champion Bruno Cappelozza and one-time UFC title challenger Thiago Santos, received suspensions for various banned substances. Then, earlier this week, PFL’s 2023 light heavyweight champion Rob Wilkinson was also caught with a banned substance, forcing him out of his planned fight at PFL 4 in June. With so many fighters getting caught for banned substances in one fell swoop, some fans questioned if PFL has a PED problem. But Sonnen says it’s quite the opposite.

“Does the PFL have a problem?” Sonnen mused on his YouTube channel. “There’s a couple of ways to look at it, and my answer is no. No, they don’t. I look at it in a different way, which is, they went out to Nevada and they got like nine guys in a day.

“It was roughly nine guys for the PFL, and then somebody else came in, and he was even a tournament winner, a defending winner that was planning to enter this season. So they get pulled, and the way I see it, they don’t have a problem, the PFL has a good system in place for catching these people.”

Sonnen is no stranger to banned substances and drug testing, having repeatedly failed drug tests throughout his MMA career. Sonnen has been open about his use of performance-enhancing drugs during his career, even joking that he “had a higher juice concentrate than Tropcana” when he fought Jon Jones in 2013.

Moving forward, Sonnen believes that this bevy of failed drugs tests will not only serve as a warning to other fighters in the promotion, but also as a teaching moment.

“Sometimes it’s educating them,” Sonnen said. “People generally don’t like to hear that, that it was a mistake, but a lot of times it is, that somebody didn’t know that something that they’re taking is banned, or the time they’re taking it.

“So when you have these athletes that were hit and they’re going to deal with that, they’re going to learn from it, but they’re also going to become examples for the rest of the roster to look at, ‘Oh, I’m doing that same thing.’ It’s kind of the way that it goes. I didn’t see a big problem with it. I just didn’t.”