Jeff Novitzky is on board with the Combat Sports Commission of
Western Australia’s
statement that there is no evidence of illegal IV use regarding
the athletes who competed at UFC 284.
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Shortly after Islam
Makhachev defeated Alexander
Volkanovski in the UFC 284 headliner, Volkanovski’s teammate,
Dan
Hooker, accused the lightweight champion of illegal IV use on
social media. The allegation was later refuted by Makhachev’s
manager in a statement, but the controversy continued unitl it was
addressed by the Australian commission. In an interview with UFC
commentator Brendan Fitzgerald, Novitzky, the UFC senior vice
president of athlete health and performance, revealed that athletic
commission’s rules regarding IV use differ from USADA’s. With that
in mind, if the Combat Sports Commission of Western Australia says
there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing, Novitzky is quite confident
that Makhachev is in the clear.
“I think the Australian commission put out a statement [recently]
saying there’s no credible evidence of him violating any of their
rules,” Novitzky said. “I think I’ll leave it at that.”
Novitzky disussed the changes in USADA policy regarding IV use a
few years back, and how that differs from how an athletic
commission might develop its on policy on the matter.
“Unfortunately it’s not an easy thing to explain. It’s a little bit
complicated. There’s multiple layers,” he said. “Let’s start with
the UFC/USADA rules. In 2019, we manipulated our rules slightly to
allow IV use if a medical situation is diagnosed by a physician and
the IV was administered by a medical professional. The reason we
did that is we were running into instances where fighters were out
of competition — didn’t have a fight scheduled or were well out
from their fight — and got the flu. [They] went to the doctor’s
office, and the doctor says a bag or two of IV would benefit you.
That’s why we changed the rule for a medical diagnosis and
administered by a medical professional professional.
“However, when it comes to fight week especially, the rules are
two-tier: There’s the UFC/USADA rule and there’s also the
commission rules,” he continued. “Without exception, every single
commission where we go fight, would require specific permission
from that commission and their doctors specifically to allow an IV
use … It’s probably likely that the commission will be pulling the
fight if you have a diagnosed medical condition that requires an
IV.
“Going back to Islam and Perth, the Western Australia Combat
Commission…They have a specific rule that IVs are banned completely
for rehydration purposes. So it wouldn’t matter the volume, it
wouldn’t matter if there was a medical professional involved. Perth
bans those IVs.”
Novitzky also addressed questions regarding photos of Makhachev
that surfaced during fight week which showed bruising on the
lightweight champion’s arm. While there was speculation that could
be a result of IV use, Novitzky says that’s not the case.
“What I don’t think a lot of people realized is all non-Australian
athletes that week gave a blood draw on Wednesday as part of their
pre-fight physical,” he said. “I think if you look at pictures
thereafter, you saw a small band-aid on the arm. As that day
progressed, Wednesday and Thursday, the bruising grew.”