Former Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight titleholder Sean Sherk was released from active suspension in California on Monday after meeting all of the requirements as outlined by the California State Athletic Commission.
Sherk was suspended for 12-months and fined $2,500 for testing positive for Nandrolone, a banned substance, following his July 7, 2007 bout with Hermes Franca in Sacramento, Calif.
After several delays in his appeals hearing, Sherk’s sentence was eventually reduced to six months and the fine held at $2,500. The UFC then stripped him of the lightweight title, which he had defended against Franca.
The reduction made him eligible to come off of the active suspension list as of Jan. 7. Sherk, however, remained on the list due to the fact that he had not yet paid the fine associated with his infraction, which he did on Monday. Official records will indicate that he was suspended from July 7, 2007 through April 14, 2008.
Following the reduction in his sentence, Sherk told reporters he would never fight in California again.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “It won’t even be offered to me. The way (the CSAC does) stuff is very biased. They don’t have rules; they don’t have regulations … they make stuff up as they go.
“There needs to be some kind of regulation. They want to follow WADA when it benefits them; they want to change things when it benefits them. Nobody overlooks them. There’s got to be some sort of backlash to everything that’s happened in the last five months.”
Sherk is scheduled to return to the Octagon at UFC 84 on May 24 when he challenges current lightweight champion B.J. Penn. Although the bout will take place in Las Vegas, he had to be cleared from California’s suspension list before the bout would be allowed to take place in Nevada.
