Postal Connections: Conspiracy Theorists Run Amok

It has been a wild couple of months for MMA, in general, and specifically the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Going back to UFC 199 — an absolute beauty of a show and frontrunner for “Event of the Year” — we’ve had an unbelievable run of huge fight cards, an old-fashioned Zuffa vs. Media scrap, crazy sale talk that was finally consummated after the UFC 200 mega-card and a ton of PED talk, with both Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar tripping the tainted sample signal in the United States Anti-Doping Agency cave. All this and we’re about to get a Robbie Lawler title fight, almost always a treat, on Saturday in Atlanta, and everyone’s favorite Irish smack talker is just three weeks away from his rematch with Nate Diaz. I don’t know if we sailed under a lucky star or what, but this has been one of the more memorable runs I’ve seen in my long tenure covering this sport. With that said, let’s jump into your comments and questions in the latest Postal Connections mailbag. Away we go:*** Do you think the UFC purposely didn’t expedite Lesnar’s test knowing he was dirty? They could’ve but didn’t‬‬. — @ZPGIFs I know there are a ton of conspiracy theories floating around about Lesnar’s sample being returned late. I get it: The company and Lesnar himself made a boatload of Benjamins at UFC 200, but I find it hard to believe that this was a willful decision. Sure, they could put the expedite order on every sample — something Nevada said it would do after Anderson Silva popped positive in a pre-fight test in 2015 — but even then, they still won’t have pre-fight results for samples taken in the day or two before the bout. Should everything be done to ensure a positive result disqualifies a fighter from entering the cage? Absolutely. The lengths the company is going to spend millions of dollars to implement a one-of-a-kind PED testing program are going to create as level a playing field as possible and indemnify the UFC from any future litigation, and it should be applauded. I know it’s not the hot take of the week, but I fail to see the benefit of purposely delaying the findings. There is just too much to lose. Also, when you …

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