With just one week to spare, Bantamweight Guido Cannetti has been flagged for a potential United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) violation and pulled from his upcoming bout with Marco Beltran at The Ultimate Fighter (TUF): "Latin America 3" Finale next Saturday (Nov. 5, 2016). No specific banned substances have been named at this time.
MMA Fighting confirmed the violation stemming from an out-of-competition test on Oct. 15 with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) officials earlier today (Sat., Oct. 29, 2016). UFC is currently seeking a replacement for Cannetti, who took to Instagram to declare his innocence:
The translation is as follows:
"Today, I was informed that I won't be fighting because there was a prohibited substance in the analysis that I was given. I swear that I didn't take anything with a banned substance. I'm very sad for not being able to fight. To this day, I'm training and I gave my best in each training session and I was away from my family for nothing. I spent money that I didn't have to train myself and now I don't have a fight. I swear over my family that I didn't take any prohibited substance. The only thing that could possibly be is a supplement of the ones I took that has something that didn't say it has. I hope that this gets resolved quick because I'm very sad for all the sacrifices I made for this fight."
Cannetti, 36, has recorded a 1-1 record since entering UFC back in Nov. 2014. His upcoming bout with Beltran was expected to be a rematch from a tournament meeting the two had during the first season of TUF: "Latin America."
Stick with Mania as more pertaining to Cannetti's USADA violation becomes available.