Chael Sonnen: Anderson Silva made “big mistake” by denying failed test

Chael Sonnen knows about life after a failed drug test.

The former UFC superstar saw his career come to a halt after a testing for a high testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in 2010, and he retired from MMA last year after he failed two more random tests. And while the repeated transgressions didn’t help his reputation, his honestly about what accounted for the failed tests did help him save face.

Now Sonnen’s former rival Anderson Silva has found himself in a similar situation. Silva defeated Nick Diaz on July 31 in his first fight since he suffered gruesome breaks to his left tibia and fibula, but just days after it was revealed he tested positive for two performance-enhancing drugs, Drostanolone and Androstane.

Unlike Sonnen, Silva has denied any wrongdoing. That wasn’t a wise move according to Sonnen, now an ESPN analyst, who discussed Silva’s dilemma with Bob Stelton on 710 ESPN Seattle’s “Get in the Cage” on Friday.

“Within 12 hours of the biggest bombshell of his life, he puts out a statement,” Sonnen said. “It’s like ‘Anderson, we gotta slow down. You need to think about this, you need to think about what you’re saying.’ Failing a drug test is bad, but lying about it is arguably worse.”

Sonnen feels Silva was well within his rights to use PEDs if they were helping speed up his recovery, especially considering his age (39) and the severity of the injury he was working back from, making his immediate denial seem short-sided.

“The guy snapped his leg in half,” he said. “He has not only a right, but he has an absolute obligation to himself to fix his body, no matter what that means. Free market or black market, if he can get his hands on something that can repair his body, he needs to do that … I’m telling you, with that injury, we all thought his career was over. He had no license – his license was expired. He had every right, not only ethically – certainly ethically support him healing his body – but also under the rules of sport, which are very sensitive rules, he still had the right to do it.

“Where the wheels fall off the bus on the argument I just made is that he has now come out and said he did not do it. I think that was a big mistake.”

Not giving an ethical explanation of why the drugs were in his system may hurt Silva in the public eye, but his denial could have even bigger consequences considering the organization that conducted the test.

“Here’s the thing he’s missing: the company that tested him is USADA. That stands for the United States Anti-Doping Agency. They are funded by the United States Congress,” Sonnen said. “There is no end in sight of resources, time or expense to protect and preserve their credibility. If you come in and you attempt to say that they got it wrong, they will tie you up on criminal, imprisonable perjury charges until they get you. Just ask Lance (Armstrong).”

Based on Sonnen’s own experience, he thinks there’s only one thing Silva can do to save his reputation.

“I really believe having been through this, you just take it on the chin, because at the end of the day the rules are the rules,” he said. “If you were talking about me, I broke the rules. There’s no way around that. These things were on the list, I took them, that’s it.

“Sport comes with a significant amount of rules, many of them archaic, many of them disagreeable, but they’re still the rules. And if he has the substance still in his system, he’s gonna be in some red tape, and that appears to be where he’s at.”