MMANytt recently asked Scott Coker a question alot of us have been wondering about the answer to. Cro Cop was suspended in 2015 by USADA, then went to fight overseas meaning the suspension was on pause while he was still competing. It also means he still has time left to serve but he’s scheduled to fight in Bellator at their London event in May. Coker explains the reason for allowing him to fight in spite of the debacle.
Look, Mirko fights in Rizin in Japan and USADA has a relationship with the UFC and they have the whole time. Why didn’t they go after them two years ago when he fought for RIZIN? Why is this a question? Is this just popping up because he’s fighting for Bellator at our two hundredth event? If you wanted to take action, you should’ve taken action a long time ago. When we booked him we didn’t even know there were going to be any issues. He’s already fighting so we thought he was going to be able to fight.
He continued,
Listen, USADA works with the UFC, they’re doing their own thing, so good for them, go do it. I just feel like the timing of it is, you know, it’s little bit questionable. At the end of the day, if you really wanted to enforce it, you should’ve enforced it two years ago when Mirko fought in Japan.
So to sum up – Cro Cop was suspended for a USADA violation in the UFC, but Bellator doesn’t work with USADA so he is technically cleared to fight. Wow.