Sherdog’s Top 10: PED Busts

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6. Sean Sherk | Hermes Franca
UFC 73 “Stacked”
In terms of sheer ridiculousness in the realm of PEDs, it is hard to match the Sherk-Franca matchup for the lightweight title that took place at UFC 73. Sherk, a thickly-muscled former welterweight who had come up short in his bid to win the 170-pound title against Matt Hughes years before, had finally wrapped his hands around UFC gold after beating Kenny Florian to win the vacant title at 155 pounds. Franca, the former World Extreme Cagefighting lightweight titleholder, was riding an eight-fight winning streak of his own.

Sherk overpowered Franca for all five rounds, taking him down 16 times en route to a dominant decision victory. After years of non-existence and a struggle to find marketable fighters, the UFC finally seemed like it had found its dominant lightweight.

After the fight, however, both fighters popped for banned substances. Franca’s sample came back positive for the anabolic steroid drostanalone, and Sherk’s contained traces of nandrolone, another anabolic steroid. Franca owned up to his usage, apologizing and stating that he took the substance to recover from a training injury, while Sherk took the common route of blaming a tainted supplement. Both fighters were suspended and fined by the California State Athletic Commission, and the UFC stripped Sherk of his title.

Neither fighter ever reached their previous heights. B.J. Penn violently knocked out Sherk with a flying knee in his return to the Octagon, and he closed out his UFC career with a loss to Frankie Edgar and a contentious split decision over Evan Dunham. Franca’s career took an increasingly worrisome nosedive that culminated in a stint in Oregon state prison for the horrifying sexual abuse of a minor.

Number 5 » The thrill of the victory was short-lived, however, as his post-fight drug test came back with more than 25 times the normal level of nandrolone, an anabolic steroid.