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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=445995" target="_blank">
Mendes: I 'definitely' think Aldo is on PEDs
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<p>UFC featherweight Chad Mendes appeared recently on the <a href="http://www.sherdog.com/radio/Beatdown-Chad-Money-Mendes-3841" target="_blank">Sherdog Radio Network’s ”Beatdown” show</a> and discussed Performance Enhancing Drugs in the UFC. Mendes said that he believes UFC Featherweight Champ Jose Aldo ‘definitely’ uses PEDs. Further, Mendes alleges that that, and not the neck injury, is why Aldo dropped of their scheduled title at UFC 176.</p>
Aldo recently spoke with Brazil's Combate, and implied that Mendes was in PEDs.
“The first time I saw that, for me, this is huge in my mind,” said Mendes as transcribed by C.J. Tuttle for Sherdog. “He’s reaching big time. We have never seen Aldo lash out like this; we’ve never seen him lose his temper. I am in his head. I own him right now.
“This is huge for me. This is huge for me getting in there and taking that belt from him. I’ve never seen him talk like this about anybody. He’s being very disrespectful. I’ve never been caught red-handed or anything. It’s funny to me that as soon as the whole random drug testing started popping up, the next day he is injured and out of the fight. If anything, I could throw that in his face, but whatever.”
“I definitely do [think Aldo’s using PEDs]. This is something that's been ongoing, but for him to all of a sudden just drop out -- I mean he drops out of a lot of fights -- but I think it’s pretty coincidental.”
“I’d probably say at least 80 percent of fighters are probably taking something. You know, there’s guys that are coming back from injury trying to take it. Whether it’s them trying to survive, pay their mortgage, pay rent or whatever -- or guys just trying to get that full advantage to be at the top. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of people taking performance enhancing drugs.”
“I like [random drug testing]. The only thing I question about the system is what do we do about guys that are out of the country? Guys in Brazil, guys in Japan, can we trust those random drug tests? I was thinking about this the other day: If someone were to knock on Aldo’s door in Brazil and say, ‘We need to give you a random drug test,’ and he says ‘Here’s $1,000, go away,’ it’s done. I feel like something like that could happen very easily. I just want to know what the system would be -- how could we trust that it’s going to be fair everywhere?”
“So this is the thing: We’ve got all this random drug testing, all this stuff that’s going on, testing for EPO, HGH, all this stuff now -- they can get away with that stuff over in Brazil. This is why he wants me to be in Brazil and fighting in Brazil - they can do all that kind of stuff there. For me, I want this to be a fair fight. I went there first; I fought him in his backyard. I think it’s only fair he comes here and fights me in my backyard. Let’s make it one and one and see what happens. We are still working on it. I talked to [UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby] a little bit. It’s a 50/50 percent chance it could end up in Brazil. We are trying obviously to get it pushed here. We don’t know for sure.”
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