Last November, Anderson Silva was flagged by USADA was provisionally suspended for a potential doping violation that stemmed from an out-of-competition sample collected on October 26, 2017. The flag would come not even three years after his 2015 test failures for which he received a fine and a 12-month suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission following a bizarre hearing where one commissioner called Silva’s defense “hokey.”
Needless to say, he was removed from a November 25 bout against Kelvin Gastelum and Michael Bisping filled in as the late replacement.