5 fighters who were expected to be clean but weren't

#4 Lyoto Machida

Nobody suspected Lyoto Machida to be a PED user

Always marketed by the UFC as the very definition of a “traditional” martial artist, through the majority of his UFC career Lyoto Machida was never linked with PED use, nor did his physique suggest that he had something to hide either.

A karate master who used his vaunted skills to win the Light-Heavyweight title in 2009, the most controversial thing Machida had ever been involved in was an odd report that suggested he drank his own urine for health benefits. That was until recently.

After his career had begun to decline in 2015 – he’d suffered three losses in four fights including stoppages at the hands of Luke Rockhold and Yoel Romero – Lyoto took some time away before signing to fight Dan Henderson in April 2016.

Prior to the fight, though, Machida tested positive for the USADA-prohibited substance 7-Keto-DHEA. He was immediately pulled from the fight and ended up being handed a long eighteen-month suspension, seemingly because he freely admitted to what he’d done.

Despite experts in PED use claiming that the substance Machida took actually didn’t really enhance performance – supposedly it was a mild weight-loss drug at best – it was still a huge surprise to see a fighter as traditional and respectful as Machida to test positive for any banned substance.