Daniel Cormier made his mixed martial arts debut in September 2009 in the Strikeforce Contenders series. He fought in the Australian fight promotion XMMA and in King of the Cage.
“DC” won the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament in 2012. Strikeforce was purchased by the UFC and their entire heavyweight division was folded over into the new promotion. When Cormier made his octagon debut, in his 12th career fight, it was the first time he had been drug tested for a bout.
“I never took a drug test until I got into the UFC,” Cormier said during an appearance on Club Shay Shay.
Cormier believes there were a lot of fighters taking steroids prior to uniform testing being implemented. His loss to Jon Jones at UFC 214 was ruled a no contest after Jones tested positive for a turinabol metabolite, and Cormier doesn’t think Jones was the only fighter he faced that was taking performance enhancers.
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“He’s not the only guy I fought on steroids. I think that before they started doing all that testing, all those guys were doing steroids,” Cormier said. “I really do. I mean, many of them had been popped for steroids before, and I fought them.”
“Cycle on and off, or they just weren’t testing,” Cormier continued. “I just went and fought, so I don’t know what those guys were doing.”
Throughout his wrestling and mixed martial arts career, Cormier has been drug tested dozens of times by USADA. He never tested positive.
“I got tested 65 times by USADA from wrestling until then, but look at me. I’m not on steroids,” Cormier said.
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