JRE MMA Show #53 with Jeff Novitzky

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   ... four, three, two,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      ... four, three, two, one. Boom. Got a little thing going on here now, a little circle. Hello, Jeff. Merry Christmas.

   2. JNJeff Novitzky0:13

      What's up, Joe? You too.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      How you living? (laughs)

   4. JNJeff Novitzky0:15

      (laughs) Not been the easiest week in, in my life or my career is last week, but hanging in there.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      To make this a standalone so that people don't have to go r- figuring this out on their own, and I- I'm sure many, many fans that are tuning in already know the, the gist of the details, let's lay this out from the beginning. Jon Jones' initial failed test.

   6. JNJeff Novitzky0:36

      Yeah, so that was July of 2017. He tested positive for approximately 20, anywhere from 20 to 60 picograms of a long-term metabolite known as the M3 metabolite of a substance called dihydrocholormethyltestosterone, DH-CMT, also known as oral Turinabol.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:58

      And this was over a year ago. Um, what was determined to be the source of this stuff?

   8. JNJeff Novitzky1:04

      Never determined what the source was.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:07

      Hmm.

   10. JNJeff Novitzky1:07

       So Jon went through a full arbitration hearing, um, was never able to determine where it came from. Tested all the supplements he was using, you know, went through many, uh, interviews with USADA, had a full-on arbitration hearing. Uh, the source was never determined where it came from.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       Why was his suspension so low or so short if it wasn't determined?

   12. JNJeff Novitzky1:29

       Well, I mean ... (laughs) So, I mean, there's many factors that, that go into what that suspension was. I w- I would argue in the tota- totality of the evidence that was presented in that arbitration that it, that it wasn't a short suspension, um, because really one key thing came out at arbitration. So Jon went to arbitration before an individual by the name of Richard McLaren. Richard McLaren has an arbitration group up in Canada, and McLaren is probably worldwide known as one of the most credible guys in anti-doping. I know you had the, the Icarus producer, director on.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:03

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JNJeff Novitzky2:03

       The McLaren report was the report that came from all that. He basically investigated the Russian state being involved in doping in the Sochi games and put out actually a series of reports on it detailing that up to 1,000 Russian athletes, um, you know, were breaking the rules and the Russian laboratory was helping them get around it. So-

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:23

       Right.

   16. JNJeff Novitzky2:24

       ... he's a very, very respected guy. He's independent of, obviously, the UFC. He's independent of USADA. Um, he acts on his own.

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:33

       And his determination was?

   18. JNJeff Novitzky2:34

       His determination, um, and I'll read you kind of what he said.

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       Okay.

   20. JNJeff Novitzky2:38

       He said, "I find that all evidence available to me leads me to conclude that the violation was not intended nor could it have e- enhanced the athlete's performance." So A, non-intentional, so non-intentional ingestion. I mean, there's no argument that it was in his system, but he found the evidence to show non-intentional use, and then he went further saying that based on the numbers of what he saw in the evidence, there was not even a performance-enhancing benefit afforded to Jon for having this long-term metabolite in his system. And I think that's significant when you talk about, hey, 15 months, was that ... That's, you know, kinda light being that this is his second time through. I would argue that if there was an argument, that maybe it's on the higher end. And certainly, you know, we'll talk about the California commission. Andy Foster took that position, uh, in Jon's recent California hearing. He was a little bit critical of USADA. Um, he thought, you know, he's intimately familiar with this evidence, both in the previous case and this occurrence, that, and he also saw that there was no evidence that an independent arbitrator, you know, made this, uh, statement and decision of Jon intentionally cheating. Um, so if anything, you know, I'd say that potentially there could be an argument that, that it was, you know, on the higher end versus the lower end.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:56

       Because of the fact that it was an unintentional ingestion.

   22. JNJeff Novitzky3:59

       Exactly.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:59

       Now, what is Jon's excuse? What does, what has Jon said how he got this into his system?

   24. JNJeff Novitzky4:04

       Yeah. Well, look, you know, and it, and it's, it's detailed in the arbitration hearing and all. Jon, Jon fully admits that, you know, some of the lifeti- lifestyle decisions he was making, you know, the partying and things, you know, probably did not lead to, to making smart decisions and making smart choices in terms of what was being ingested in the body. But certainly his testimony was, under oath, that I have never intentionally cheated and did not intentionally put this substance in my body. And not only this case, but as we talk about the subsequent case here, I think you'll see that based on the numbers, you know, coming out of his tests and based on some studies that have been done on some of these substances, it would tend to support that.

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:45

       Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Jon test negative then test positive for extremely low numbers? This is the initial test before we get into the most recent failed test.

   26. JNJeff Novitzky4:55

       He did. So-

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:56

       Test negative, then test positive very shortly after with a very small trace amount.

   28. JNJeff Novitzky5:02

       Correct. So he had two negative tests on July 7th and July 8th, I believe, of 2017. And then weigh-in day, I think it was July 28th, he was positive for a very low level of the M3 metabolite. And, and we might as well start here. So again, going back to Icarus, remember, remember the doctor? I mean, he's the main character in that, Rodchenkov.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:24

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JNJeff Novitzky5:25

       In 2011, he put out a study on oral Turinabol. Um, he actually, my understanding, has dosed himself and then studied the excretion of his urine and what was coming out of it over the weeks and months after and determined that there were s- multiple, maybe up to 50 metabolites that once this DH-CMT was ingested into the body, the body converted into other substances and these, these metabolites stayed around. He identified some short-term metabolites, some medium-term metabolites.... and some long-term metabolites, specifically the M3 that Jon's tested positive for.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   What is the window…

   1. JNJeff Novitzky15:00

      he re-ingested it." What he's saying here is, slow your roll on that. That, that it's such a small, incomprehensible level that we don't really know what those variances are gonna look like. Now, I think if we saw jumps in Jon from single digit, eight or nine picogram to multiple hundred digit picograms, there would be a concern and maybe some re- re-administration. But the experts I've speaking to, when you're talking variability of 10, 20, 30, 40, it's not that significant at the picogram level.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:29

      What is the window where this long-term metabolite s- starts to express itself? Like, what ... You said there's short term and there's medium term. This is the long term. How long does it take for the long term one?

   3. JNJeff Novitzky15:40

      Yeah. That's, that's a good question. I, I don't have the answer to that. It may be in Rodchenkov's report here. And I, I would encourage those that are at home, you know, playing, playing scientist at, at their computer. Uh, the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, uh, Rodchenkov writes a report, "Detection and Mass Spec- Spectrometric Characterization of Novel Long-Term Dehydrochloromethyltestosterone Metabolites in Human Urine." I'm not sure when that long-term metabolite, how long it takes to, to show up. Here's the problem though with this substance. He did a real brief study, my understanding he's administered it to himself. That's the only study that exists.

   4. JRJoe Rogan16:20

      Mm.

   5. JNJeff Novitzky16:21

      Oral Turinabol, DHCMT, to my understanding, is not approved for use for human consump- consumption anywhere, anywhere in any country. So you can't have clinical trials ethically in the medical world because it's just not legal to give this to human beings. So, you know, we're, we're already kinda behind the eight-ball here in that, you know, as compared to other substances where you can do clinical trials 'cause they're readily available via pre- prescription or whatever, this substance is not. This substance was created by the East Germans in the '70s and '80s and was part of their state-sponsored doping program where they were doping their athletes.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:01

      And can you correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe what I've read is that this is particularly effective when people are cutting weight.

   7. JNJeff Novitzky17:09

      Yeah. I mean-

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:09

      Is that true or is this just more-

   9. JNJeff Novitzky17:11

      I don't know about that.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       ... monologue?

   11. JNJeff Novitzky17:12

       I think some may be confusing Turinabol with oral Turinabol, two completely-

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:17

       Right.

   13. JNJeff Novitzky17:17

       ... different substances.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:18

       Let's talk about that, 'cause this, that's actually very important.

   15. JNJeff Novitzky17:19

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:20

       There's, there's very different effects on the body. There's very different windows in terms of detection time. Ex- explain that to me, please.

   17. JNJeff Novitzky17:27

       Yeah. You, you gotta be really careful in this world of performance-enhancing drugs. There's names that are interchangeable. There's different, you know, chemical names where you change a little bit of that chemical name, it could be a m- mean a completely different substance. There's instances where the chemical name is different but the substance is actually the same. So when trying to compare two substances, you know, make sure, if you're at home doing that analysis, you're comparing the right ones. Straight Turinabol is different than oral Turinabol.

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:55

       What is the difference?

   19. JNJeff Novitzky17:57

       Uh, yeah. I c- I can't tell you. I'm not as familiar with Turinabol other than it's not oral Turinabol.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:02

       So, but there is a difference in terms of the detection window?

   21. JNJeff Novitzky18:06

       Yeah, there would be, and I mean, different substances create and throw out different metabolites, um, and different substances have different detection windows.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       So-

   23. JNJeff Novitzky18:14

       So I haven't done my study and research on straight Turinabol other than knowing it's different than the substance here.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:20

       So, uh, Grigory Rodchenkov, that's how you say his last name, right?

   25. JNJeff Novitzky18:23

       Yep. Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:23

       He was the only guy to do an actual verified study.

   27. JNJeff Novitzky18:28

       Correct.

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:28

       Now has this study been ... Has it been peer-reviewed?

   29. JNJeff Novitzky18:31

       Yeah, I mean, it ... Well, it's, it's published in-... the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. So in order to get something published, it needs to be peer-reviewed.

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:40

       Right. So, the- it's- has it been replicated anywhere?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   But this, this-... test…

   1. JNJeff Novitzky30:01

      I have a concern that ... What kind of level of sensitivity are we talking about? Are we gonna talk about environmental contamination where you walk, you know, through a room and somebody has just opened a container of something and there's, you know, minuscule powders in the air? There are documented cases that some of the regularly prescribed prescription drugs, specifically, um, diuretics, are getting in water supplies in some areas. You know, you get a lot of old people on them that flush their old, um, pills down the toilet. There's documented cases of it getting into the water supply and being detectable at that picogram level. So you've gotta be really, really careful about that, and I think, you know, this case exemplifies that USADA and, and really the World Anti-Doping Agency world and community are aware of that. Um, you know, with greater sensitivity in testing, in my opinion, bec- you know, makes greater responsibility to be objective and look fairly at what really we're doing here when we're detecting in that small amount.

   2. JRJoe Rogan31:03

      But this, this-... test of Jon's, where he's testing for the same l- level of picograms today as he was in July of 2017, is it safe to say that this is unprecedented?

   3. JNJeff Novitzky31:18

      Uh, r- repeat that again.

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:19

      That Jon's test for the same levels of picograms of these metabolites in 2018 that he was testing for in 2017 wa- this is unprecedented.

   5. JNJeff Novitzky31:31

      No.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:31

      It's not?

   7. JNJeff Novitzky31:31

      The answer's no.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:32

      It's not?

   9. JNJeff Novitzky31:32

      So maybe unprecedented in the UFC program, but what the United States Anti-Doping Agency did over these last five or six months is they reached out to the science community outside the scope of the UFC. They reached out to other professional sports organizations, they reached out to other w- WADA laboratories, and what they were seeing was multiple instances of this pulsing effect, where over time you would see a reading.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:58

       Right.

   11. JNJeff Novitzky31:59

       The next test it would go away, and the next time you'd see that reading again, maybe back up to or even above-

   12. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       This much time?

   13. JNJeff Novitzky32:05

       ... what that was. Correct. Yes.

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:07

       So in the t-

   15. JNJeff Novitzky32:08

       And you see that in the chlo- in the clomiphene study here too.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:10

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JNJeff Novitzky32:10

       I mean, almost 260... They stopped the study what... It was still appearing in picogram levels in some subjects, and they stopped the study at 261 days.S and you see those numbers I was reading to you. You see this one subject at 174. He's negative the next time, and then he pops up to two- in the 200s after, so it's actually more than the time before. Again, apples and oranges-

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:33

       Right.

   19. JNJeff Novitzky32:33

       ... different substances, but the commonality here is chlorinated substance.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:37

       Chlorine-based. So is, is it safe to say that this is an emerging science, and that we're still l- learning and understanding this as we go along?

   21. JNJeff Novitzky32:47

       Absolutely. It, it's still very young. Look, the first, you know, the, the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles were, uh, established the first drug testing laboratory by Dr. Catlin. Um, so really, you know, in the scope of science going back to the, the earliest days, then, you're talking about, you know, what? 30, 30 years? 30, 35 years? Um, again, when I started off in this 16 or 17 years, the science still wasn't good. They were unable to detect anything in the picogram level. Um, again, for, for reference, very interesting. So the, the WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agencies, accredits laboratories across the world, and they have certain standards that those laboratories must meet in order to retain that accreditation, um, and keep that accreditation. So they have a technical document called the Minimum Required Performance Levels of their laboratories. So what they tell the laboratories is, "You must detect these substances down to this amount. If you can't get them down to this amount, then you can't have an accreditation from WADA." So, the class of substances that oral turinabol would be in, um, which would be other anabolic agents, the required minimum level that they must detect to is only two nanograms.

   22. JRJoe Rogan34:07

       Mm.

   23. JNJeff Novitzky34:07

       So, look, WADA even says, "As long as you can get to two nanograms, you can retain our accreditation." Well, what's happening is an arms race in these laboratories. They're saying, "Well, two's the minimum standard, but I, I can get down further."

   24. JRJoe Rogan34:20

       Right.

   25. JNJeff Novitzky34:20

       And, you know, these are private entities that, you know, are looking for, for customers, so to be able to reach out and say, "Well, even though WADA tells us two is as low as we need to go, we can go down to one picogram." I think (laughs) in a, in a sense maybe you need to slow the reins on that a little bit, that we're getting too far and too sensitive of a level of detection when it comes to implementing a fair program, because you can't determine where one picogram c- came from. You could be breathing, again, contaminated air, drinking contaminated water. It gets real dangerous when you get down that low.

   26. JRJoe Rogan34:55

       Now, how does this reflect on past suspensions? This is, uh, w- when you, you deal with someone like... L- let's bring up Frank Mir, for example.

   27. JNJeff Novitzky35:03

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan35:04

       Didn't Frank Mir also test for oral turinabol?

   29. JNJeff Novitzky35:07

       Okay. I wanna get back to Frank Mir-

   30. JRJoe Rogan35:08

       Okay.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Exactly. So interestingly enough,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      estimation, might have been moved over into a position where, okay, now, now it's getting a little bit ridiculous in terms of like what we can detect and what is, what is causing fights to be canceled.

   2. JNJeff Novitzky45:14

      Exactly. So interestingly enough, s- the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, their next code revision is 2021. And so they regularly put out, "Hey, what are the issues going forward that we want to address?" And one of the major issues is potentially establishing thresholds for these low-level substances that keep appearing. Um, DHCMT being one of them, ostarine being one of them. And so the idea that WADA is looking at and has a working group of worldwide experts is, hey, if, if something gets reported back at under 50 picograms, um, all the evidence is showing more likely than not, this is from a very low level contaminant issue. We've never seen an issue of a microdosing or an intentional use that's reached that level. Why are the labs even reporting at sub, at quantities lower than 50 picograms or 100 picograms? I think very soon they're gonna come out with a recommendation. We are gonna adopt that before 2021. Once that working group, and we're in communication with them, comes up with those recommendations, you'll see it implemented first in the UFC program. Again, I've always said, fairness, due process in a program is just as important as the strength and comprehens- p- comprehensiveness of that program. You'll lose faith in your athletes. You could have the strongest loophole-free program in the world, but you start implementing things unfairly, you'll lose faith just as much as if you had a bunch of loopholes in the program. It's got to be fair.

   3. JRJoe Rogan46:46

      Are you aware of the female skier that, uh, tested positive because of lip balm?

   4. JNJeff Novitzky46:51

      Uh, I think yeah. I vaguely recall about that. What, was someone else used a lip balm before her?

   5. JRJoe Rogan46:57

      No, no, no, no. It was a, uh, a lip balm for sunburn.

   6. JNJeff Novitzky47:01

      Uh-huh.

   7. JRJoe Rogan47:01

      It was for sunburnt lips, and it had some ridiculously small trace amount, was it ostarine? See if you give... Her name is, uh, Jo, Joburg? I'm trying to remember her name.

   8. JNJeff Novitzky47:15

      Well, there was the, the cocaine kissing defense was actually won in our arbitration.

   9. JRJoe Rogan47:19

      Oh, really?

   10. JNJeff Novitzky47:19

       So something similar. Somebody tested positive for, you know, low level metabolites of cocaine and basically said, "Look," you know, hey, whether that was good or not, but, um, you know, the arbitrator bought it and the science shows, hey, that, that is a possibility. The detection levels are so low, if you kiss somebody who had just done cocaine, they're now able to detect that those levels in the s- the person that kissed that person.

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:44

       That makes sense. Do you, did you find this woman? Yeah, this one ... Yeah. There's a doping label on the label, which is why they gave her a penalty, apparently. Oh, I see. Okay. What is the, um... Who the fuck's reading labels on lip balm though?

   12. JNJeff Novitzky47:56

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:56

       (laughs) You know what I mean?

   14. JNJeff Novitzky47:57

       See, that, that's, that's how-

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:59

       So what does it say?

   16. JNJeff Novitzky47:59

       ... crazy it's gotten. I mean, all our athletes know when, when they're using a creatine or a protein or whatever, I think most of them are pretty careful right now. But to tell them, "Hey, you need to read your lip balm and your deodorant." I mean where, w- what level are we getting to here-

   17. JRJoe Rogan48:13

       Right.

   18. JNJeff Novitzky48:14

       ... in these, in these ar- levels of detection?

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:16

       So she, 21, nine-year-old star of Norway's powerhouse squad of, uh, skiing, cross-country skiing, tested positive for an an- anabolic agent listed in the contents of a treatment for sunburn. Um, this could be similar in some ways to what Chad Mendes tested positive for, for something for psoriasis. Correct? S- Chad Mendes has obvious psoriasis. You can see it on his body. He's talked about it pretty openly and he used some sort of a cream and accepted his penalty. Wasn't aware that this cream had something, some ty- type of a steroid into it.

   20. JNJeff Novitzky48:48

       Yeah. I'd, I'd seen him publicly state that. Now he chose not to present a defense or go to arbitration. So I haven't seen anything in detail to give you-

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:56

       Right. He just wrote off the penalty.

   22. JNJeff Novitzky48:56

       ... you know, knowledgeable opinion on that. Yeah, he did.

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:59

       Um, what are... So let's get back to the Frank Mir case. Frank Mir tested positive. Was it also oral turinabol?

   24. JNJeff Novitzky49:05

       Also, same thing, long-term metabolite of oral turinabol. Here's the difference. Frank Mir, the same as Jon Jones, his first time through was sanctioned. Jon didn't get off the first time this showed up in his system. He got, you know, he was looking at potential four years. Went to arbitration, presented evidence, enacted some other clauses in the policy that reduced his sanction. Frank-

   25. JRJoe Rogan49:29

       What does that mean?

   26. JNJeff Novitzky49:30

       Uh, well, one of them was, uh, um, substantial assistance where he assisted USADA in some way, shape, or form and he got a reduction for, for doing that.

   27. JRJoe Rogan49:39

       Assisted in what way?

   28. JNJeff Novitzky49:41

       D- so I don't know. And this is the exact reason why I do this. So I insulate myself from that interaction between USADA and the athlete. They are the sole adju- judicator in this. They do not...... you know, get me on the phone, say, "Hey, we're thinking about going this way." They adjudicate completely in a vacuum.

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:59

       And you are- you're ... Just so- so people know, your title is, uh, s- safety ... Health and Safety?

   30. JNJeff Novitzky50:05

       Athlete Health and Performance.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   So correct. Yoel Romero…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

   2. JNJeff Novitzky1:00:00

      So correct. Yoel Romero used a natural diuretic product that had, um, an SARM in it. Um, in all these cases, not only does the, the prohibited substance sh- need to show up and what the athlete has said they've used already to pr- but to protect against making sure the athlete isn't purposefully spiking it, USADA will go out on their own, on the market, independently procure hopefully the same lot of product. And in the case of Yoel and Tim, they were able to do that, test it completely independently of the athlete, determine what level the prohibited substance is in that based on the interview with the athlete of how much did you use, when's the last time you used it relative to this test, do the science calculations just to make sure an athlete's not saying, "Well, I know this creatine is spiked with ostrine, so I'm gonna go use ostrine and then I have a built-in excuse when I test positive for ostrine." In order to be able to match contaminant levels with what's being excreted in the urine, you would literally have to have PhD chemistry degree, and I'm not aware of, of any of our athletes having that. It'd be very, very difficult to do that.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

      And so these detection levels, again, we're talking about nanograms. We're not talking about large quantities that would-

   4. JNJeff Novitzky1:01:11

      Or picograms.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

      ... be picograms. Okay.

   6. JNJeff Novitzky1:01:12

      Correct.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:01:13

      Now what ... W- why was, why was this moved from Vegas to California and why, why did the California State Athletic Commission, why did they accept this fight taking place here and why did Vegas say no to it?

   8. JNJeff Novitzky1:01:33

      So internally, UFC wise, we first ... In fact, Donna Marcolini, who you know, who works with me, uh, we're kind of-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:01:40

      Shout-out to Donna.

   10. JNJeff Novitzky1:01:41

       Exactly. (laughs) We're a two-person shop and the woman's a hawk. She's one of the hardest workers I know.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       Love her.

   12. JNJeff Novitzky1:01:46

       So she's-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       She's awesome.

   14. JNJeff Novitzky1:01:47

       She's taking a look at something that we have access to called the Clearinghouse, and it's basically a recording of all the tests on our athletes. So we can get on there if somebody says, "Hey, how many times was Jon tested last quarter?" We can get on there and pull that up. The public also has access to our testing records, not with the specificity that the Clearinghouse has, but the public, uh, can get on and USADA on a weekly basis, um...... updates, how many tests an athlete's done. So there's some of these ... Some guys out there on the internet from the day one of the program have kept track of what week their numbers tick up. So you can go find spreadsheets on the internet, at least from a, from a weekly basis of when our athletes were tested and how many times every week.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:02:29

       God bless those dorks.

   16. JNJeff Novitzky1:02:30

       Crazy, huh?

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:02:31

       (laughs)

   18. JNJeff Novitzky1:02:32

       So, the clearing house program is very specific. We can get on there and see the actual date of the collection, and next to that we see negative, positive, or pending. So Donna came to me late November, early December saying, "Hey, I'm looking at, you know, Jon's tests and I'm seeing pending still back from ..." I think it was maybe August, September. "You think something's going on here?" And of course I'm like, "Okay, well, he's fighting pretty soon. I, I hope not. But let me reach out to USADA." So I reach out to them. They said, "We're working on something. We're, you know, conducting a study. We're talking to other professional sports leagues. We're talking to the laboratories out there and don't have an answer for you now, but, but stand by." So I think it was Sept- uh, December 6th they sent a letter to us, and they sent a letter to the Nevada State Athletic Commission saying, "Just so you're aware, over the last six months, um, early in this six months, we've seen a reemergence of this long-term metabolite, uh, in Jon's samples. We've als-"

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:03:35

       So when was this?

   20. JNJeff Novitzky1:03:36

       So this was early December, December 6th-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:03:38

       Okay.

   22. JNJeff Novitzky1:03:38

       ... um, we and the Nevada Athletic Commission were notified.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:03:41

       You were notified, but the test was from previous?

   24. JNJeff Novitzky1:03:44

       Just ... So the tests, these tests, um, covered from August through November-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:03:53

       Okay. So there's more than one test.

   26. JNJeff Novitzky1:03:55

       ... of 2018. Several of them.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:56

       Oh. So more than one test showed this metabolite.

   28. JNJeff Novitzky1:03:59

       So what they said was August 9th, negative. August 29th, eight picograms.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:06

       Eight.

   30. JNJeff Novitzky1:04:06

       September 18th.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:19:56

   So essentially y- to…

   1. JNJeff Novitzky1:15:00

      for the first five or 10 minutes, can bury my head in my hand and think through exactly how this thing's gonna play out. And, you know, it's gonna be, hey, Nevada's gonna say, "Wait a second, what's going on here? We need to root this out." Jon's going to say, "Jesus Christ, like, what is going on in my life? I can't get a fucking break, I'm trying to be careful." I even went through what DC, how DC is gonna react, and he react, he's gonna be, "I fucking told you this was the case, this guy's a cheater. You know, USADA's bullshit, Novitzky's bullshit." All this stuff goes through my head in the first five or 10 minutes. What's ... How's Dana gonna react? How's Hunter gonna react when I have to go over to his office and explain this out to them? It played out exactly as I saw it. It's- it's- it's some of the worst days of my career when I get these calls. Um, but, you know, everyone was notified and, and Nevada was in our office two days later. A- and again, I mean, there's been some criticism of them out there. Um, I don't fault them. This is a complicated issue that optically doesn't look great, and to do anything in a rushed manner would be difficult. They did everything they could to afford us having a hearing. Um, problem was, it was just, it was too close to- to a fight. Um, and then...

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:16:15

      So essentially y- to get this out th- th- this is the issue with optics, right? 'Cause it, you know, you go on Twitter, everybody's calling him a cheat, everybody's saying that, you know, "Anybody that sanctions this is, you're sanctioning cheating."

   3. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:27

      (sighs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:16:28

      For someone to get an understanding of what this is like, it actually requires probably more than we've done now over the last hour and 15 minutes.

   5. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:36

      Yeah. And, uh, and I appreciate this forum. I mean, Dana and I went on SportsCenter and announced it in three-minute hit, and I came out of there going-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:16:42

      You can't...

   7. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:43

      ... "Absolutely everyone in the world is gonna say this is bullshit."

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:16:45

      Yeah.

   9. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:45

      You can't.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:16:47

       This is like most things.

   11. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:47

       We're gonna have a hard time doing this in two hours here.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:50

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:50

       This is...

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:50

       Most things.

   15. JNJeff Novitzky1:16:51

       Yeah, you've got, you've got to delve into it, and you also have to put your trust and reliance on these experts. They have a education professional career of 20 to 25 years to come up with these absolutes. There's no one else in the world but a h- maybe a dozen people that can, that come up with these conclusions. You do have to put your, you know, your faith in, in their background and- and their careers and their knowledge and education. And, you know, I read what you, those absolutes were, that there was no evidence of any reingestion, this is by multiple, um, experts, and that Jon would not have retained any performance benefit based on these low-level picogram amounts.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:17:30

       Well, I'm happy that we're gonna have this out there so people, if they have the time, if they're really that interested in it, th- this is probably a more in-depth discussion of this than you're gonna get anywhere else. But I really wish we could've gotten something like this to Nevada, and Nevada could have gone over this. And looked at what- what I'm seeing and what you're saying, it seems to me that we could've just e- had some sort of a meeting and kept this fight in Nevada, and it would have saved everybody a lot of heartache.

   17. JNJeff Novitzky1:17:57

       Yeah, I mean, I- I think things were pointing in that, but there was no guarantees in that. Um...

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:18:02

       Roll the dice, baby, it's Nevada.

   19. JNJeff Novitzky1:18:03

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:18:03

       Come on, it's Vegas.

   21. JNJeff Novitzky1:18:05

       You know, the other thing that was being looked at was, was fairness to these athletes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:18:09

       Yes. The other athletes.

   23. JNJeff Novitzky1:18:09

       Really, you're gonna put, you're gonna put Jon and Gus, maybe more importantly, in a position where he doesn't know until two days or a day before whether this fight is happening or not. I mean, he's ... And- and not even mentioning the other fighters on the card, and look ...

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:18:24

       Yeah.

   25. JNJeff Novitzky1:18:24

       You can talk to, and I have, to Sean and Mick and- and Dana and Hunter, all these fighters want to be on the big pay-per-views. They know the bigger the fight at the top of the card, the more eyes are on that fight. And when you have a spectacular fight in the first, second fight on the card, if it's on a big pay-per-view with a giant fight at the top of it, that can propel your career. Your next fight...

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:18:46

       Yes.

   27. JNJeff Novitzky1:18:46

       ... you could be fighting the main event on, you know, Fight Pass and progress from there. So, I think, you know, I think it's accurate to say that generally everybody wants these- these cards to be as big as possible. And when all the experts are telling us, A, 100% this isn't a sanction, B, he's not retaining any performance-enhancing benefits, I think, and clearly Dane and Hunter thought this, we have an obligation to do what we can do for fairness for Jon, definitely for- for Gus, for the rest of the card, to try to make this fight happen.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:19:18

       Going forward, is there any way we could ever prevent something like this from happening again with a similar situation in a place like Nevada?

   29. JNJeff Novitzky1:19:25

       So here's ... I think we have a couple solutions to that, and it's not necessarily relative to the commission, but one thing that obviously protected Jon a lot in this was the frequency of testing. You know, if you look at his numbers, and- and these were, these were instances where they collected samples, but in many of these cases, they did multiple tests on him, and that means ... You know, the tests I'm reading were for the anabolic steroid panel, but in addition to that, they may have done biological passport tests on that same collection. They may have done an HGH test, an EPO test.

Episode duration: 1:50:10