USADA came down twice as hard on T.J. Dillashaw as the New York State Athletic Commission did, handing the champion a two-year suspension for a failed drug test at UFC Brooklyn.
The UFC’s anti-doping body announced the sanction in a statement on Tuesday, revealing that Dillashaw tested positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO). The banned substance is a synthetic hormone that increases the body’s production of red blood cells, which as a result improves oxygen transport and aerobic power.
Dillashaw is just the second UFC fighter to test positive for EPO. Lightweight veteran Gleison Tibau twice tested positive for the substance and was suspended for two years in 2015.