Ben Rothwell Happy To Be Back, Still Frustrated At His Treatment by USADA
Ben Rothwell: "MMA gave me a life. If not for MMA, I'd be working in a factory. Or dead."
— Sherdog by Mandatory (@sherdogdotcom) July 18, 2019
He also calls his last fight, a decision loss to Blagoy Ivanov, the only L of his career he disagrees with. #UFCSanAntonio pic.twitter.com/8HieWR5SPM
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The 37-year-old has fought just once since April 2016, a unanimous decision loss against Blagoy Ivanov in March, as he accepted a two-year ban last year (retroactive to February 6, 2017) which was handed down to him USADA for failing a drug test as a result of taking an “anabolic androgenic steroid of exogenous origin” in out of competition tests in 2017. At the media day for this weekend’s bout against Arlovski, Rothwell was happy to talk to the press and promote his fight but stressed he’s still frustrated by the way USADA handled his case.
“It’s just the whole USADA thing bothered me so much,” Rothwell
told reporters, including Sherdog, at Thursday’s media day. “It was
just such a dark time for me, the whole situation.”
Rothwell said the inconsistencies of how USADA assesses each test on a fighter by fighter case are unfair, and he feels badly for some of his fellow athletes who have lost years from their careers for these decisions:
“It was what happened after the fact with other fighters, this whole leniency and inconsistency that bothered me,” Rothwell said. “I feel most for guys like Tom Lawlor and Lyoto Machida and Josh Barnett. These guys had years taken off (their careers), and now you see other people having the same issues getting six-month suspensions. It’s just not right.”
The 37-year-old affectionately known as “Big Ben” said his time away from the sport due to the suspension was the darkest of his life and said the case could have been treated a lot better.
“USADA could have come out and said, ‘This is an unfortunate situation. This is what happened. But this is our regulations, and this has to be it.’ Just at least notify that hey, Ben wasn’t cheating.
“Everything changed when they started talking about levels of things. When they started saying, ‘Oh, the levels were low, it didn’t matter for these other people.’ Well, then mine should have been part of it, because there was no cheating. Everything was regulated. All the testing was done by my doctors. Everything was shown where they’re at, why they’re doing it, why the therapist couldn’t treat me, because I had physical conditions and then when that was fixed, my therapist could treat me. But by that time, USADA had already done everything.
“One of the greatest challenges of my life was getting through this. And I did. I did get through it, and I can honestly say I feel stronger than I ever had in my life.”
A rejuvenated Rothwell said his bad experience has made him a different kind of fighter than what fans are used to and will showcase it on Saturday night against Arlovski.
“MMA saved my life, and I feel like God has given me a purpose, and I have to see it through,” he said. “And I’m not done yet. For me, it’s now or never. Back’s against the wall. You guys have seen me down and out before, but this is different.”
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