(We’ll reserve judgment until we hear what Mo has to say about the allegations.)

According to a report by MMAMania, former Strikeforce light heavyweight champ Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal has tested positive for the anabolic steroid drostanalone, a popular weight-cutting aid used by bodybuilders that has also been proven to speed the healing of certain cartilage and soft tissue injuries. Other fighters who have tested positive for the drug in the past include Bill Mahood, Dennis Hallman and Hermes Franca — all of whom admitted to using it for its recovery properties after sustaining serious training injuries.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission allegedly found traces of the drug during his post-Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine fight drug screening after the results came back today.

(If the OAC wants to be taken seriously, it can’t expect promotions to self-regulate.)

If you recall, we reported after UFC 129 that the Ontario Athletic Commission had passed the buck in terms of post-fight drug testing to Zuffa for the April 30 event held in Toronto and that the UFC had hired an unnamed independent laboratory to look after testing the fighters on the historic card.

According to UFC Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Marc Ratner, who responded to a request from CagePotato.com today for test results from the event, all of the samples came back clean two weeks ago “for both [performance enhancing drugs] and illegal street drugs.”

(“I’m pissed. That son of a bitch sold me a six pack of that shit and said it was the good stuff.”)

UFC light heavyweight Thiago Silva won’t be able to fight again until at least January 1, 2012, and he will be $33,750 lighter in the wallet and will have one less win on his record when he finally returns to competition.

Silva was handed the hefty suspension and fine and had the result of his UFC 125 win over Brandon Vera changed to a “no-contest”after admitting in a hearing with the Nevada State Athletic Commission today that he used steroids and tried to mask his wrongdoing by providing a synthetic urine sample he purchased online for his pre-fight drug screen.

(“What was in that drink your cornerman gave me at the weigh-ins? It made me feel stronger than ever, bro.”)

As reports surfaced yesterday that a planned UFC 130 bout between Quinton Jackson and Thiago Silva was inexplicably scrapped and that Rashad Evans would instead face “Rampage” on the May 28 card, rumors started swirling why the Brazilian had been yanked from the card.

In an interview with TATAME yesterday, Silva attempted to quash speculation that his post-UFC 125 urine sample was the one that Nevada State Athletic Commission Keith Kizer was speaking of when he told MMAJunkie that one fighter’s specimen was being closely examined after an anomaly was detected.

“Injured? Me? I’m very healthy. That’s not true. It looks like [NSAC] did two tests and one was positive and the other was negative,” he explained. “My blood is clean. I’m not worried. I took nothing.”

MMAJunkie went on to report later in the day yesterday that each of the other 11 fighters’s samples that were tested following the January 1 show came back clean, and that Kizer admitted that Silva was the only other fighter tested that night, which is basically admitting that Silva is the alleged wrongdoer.

(We’d like to see you talk your way out of this one … PicProps: Us?)

Oh, this is not good. The biggest comeback story of 2010 may well be fizzling out before our very eyes, as the California State Athletic Commission tells Sherdog that Chael Sonnen tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in the wake of UFC 117.  CSAC Executive Officer George Dodd says Sonnen was notified over the weekend that he’d popped positive for PEDs after his loss to Anderson Silva at that event.

(Much like Bob Reilly, Nick Diaz is very interested in agriculture.)

In a bit of news that escaped our notice due to all the UFC 97 build-up and letdown, but is all too appropriate for today’s date (4/20, get it?), Nick Diaz reportedly tested clean following his TKO victory over Frank Shamrock at Strikeforce in San Jose.  The California State Athletic Commission’s Bill Douglas confirmed the news, saying that Diaz “was fine,” and adding that the test also checked for cleansing agents.

Does that mean that Diaz was jerking our collective chain about smoking weed up until the fight and using “herbal cleansers” to remove any trace from his system before the test, or does it just mean that Diaz has the hookup on the best herbal cleansers around?  If we had to speculate (and we don’t, but we will, because that’s the kind of thing we do), we’d say it’s the latter.  The world where Nick Diaz lies about his weed consumption is just not a world we want to live in.

So now who feels like a little bitch?  Answer: the CSAC.  Diaz beat them and Frank Shamrock all in one weekend.  That’s a moral victory for potheads everywhere.  It’s also enough to make you wonder about how effective the drug-testing system is in catching users of actual performance-enhancers.  If they can’t nail Diaz, who laid out his plan for beating the test beforehand, can they reliably catch steroid-users?

(Will fight for munchies.)

Eager to get a sane perspective on Nick Diaz’s unapologetic love of weed, MDS over at MMA Fanhouse took the issue up with Cesar Gracie, Nick’s longtime coach and mentor.  Gracie did not disappoint, laying out Diaz’s case in a way we can all understand.

1. It’s technically legal for Nick since he has a prescription for it thanks to his ADD/California’s lax medicinal marijuana laws
2. He still plans to test clean, so screw it anyway
3. It’s probably not something athletes should be doing, but Diaz has great cardio and does freaking triathlons, so it can’t be that bad
4. Michael Phelps does it, and how many gold medals have you won?

If that summary of points isn’t enough for you, leave it to the Brazilian to give your American ass a lesson about personal liberty:

(Epic fail, this time of the drug test variety.)

Remember the story heading into UFC 89 about how Chris Leben had matured and kicked the booze and turned his life around? Forget that, because his life has just turned back around with the word today that Leben tested positive for steroids after his bout with Michael Bisping in England last month.

Leben popped positive for Stanozolol and has been suspended for nine months by the UFC and fined one-third of his fight purse. To make things worse, there’s not even any athletic commission-mandated testing in England, so it was the UFC’s own internal testing system that caught him. At least Leben isn’t playing innocent. He apparently admitted using the drug, but told Dana White he thought it would be out of his system in time for the test. So, you know, that makes it okay, right?

Leben’s official mea culpa:

“I’ve really done everything I can to turn my life around,” said Leben.

“And this is a huge setback for me. But it’s something I will have to deal with. During my time off from fighting, I want to speak to kids about the dangers of using performance enhancing agents and let them know it just doesn’t get you ahead in life. Of course, this is a hard hit for me monetarily, but more so this is embarrassing for me and for all my fans.”

Jesus, he’s already doing the ‘I want to talk to kids’ thing? The fight was just a few weeks ago. What idiot publicist fed him that painfully transparent line? Just for perspective on this, let’s recap Leben’s recent career decisions:

Despite a positive drug test, Elite XC heavyweight champ Antonio Silva is insisting that he did not take the horse-friendly Boldenone, as the California State Athletic Commission claims. His agent, ATT’s Alex Davis, wasted no time in refuting the charge, which we just assumed was something agents were obliged to do. Sean Sherk taught us that sometimes just challenging the positive test is enough to get your suspension reduced, so why not give it a shot?

But now Jeremy Lappen, Elite XC’s Head of Fight Operations, is getting in on the act with this statement released to the media via email:

“We respect the California commission and the job they do. We always enjoy working with them and work very well together. The illegal use of steroids is a problem in all major sports, including mixed martial arts. We certainly do not condone the use of steroids.

“But we also support, trust and have confidence in our fighter, Antonio Silva, who has denied ever taken any illegal substance, including steroids, and is prepared to challenge the results of the California Commission.

“So until all the facts are known and a final decision is rendered, EliteXC will reserve making any further comments at this time.’’

Now we’ve got a real fight on our hands. It’s unclear what “facts” Lappen is waiting for, since Silva’s A and B samples both tested positive for the drug, which supposedly has such a long half-life in the body as to make a positive fairly damning.

It’s noble for Elite XC to stick up for their guy, but it’s also a bit of a risk. It makes me wonder, has Lappen ever actually seen Silva? Of all the people I’d be willing to stick my neck out for when it comes to steroid allegations, the guy with the frighteningly-prominent brow and the Cro-Magnon jaw structure might not be my first choice.

(Mark Miller (L) will attempt to knock Jay Hieron’s shades off.)

Quiet out on the MMA plains this evening, but here are a couple of news pieces to check out:

— The official weigh-in for tomorrow night’s IFL show in Jersey came and went today, and all went smooth. The show kicks off at 7:30 pm (ET) and goes live on HDNet at 8:30 pm (ET).

Here are the weigh-in results:

Title Fights
Jay Hieron (170) vs. Mark Miller (170.4)
Wagnney Fabiano (145.4) vs. Shad Lierley (145.8)
Vladimir Matyushenko (205.4) vs. Jamal Patterson (205.6)

Non-Title and Team Fights
Delson Heleno (170.8) vs. Brad Blackburn (171)
Jim Miller (155) vs. Bart Palaszewski (155.5)
Nate Lamotte (155.8) vs. Chris Horodecki (154.6)
Mike Ciesnolevicz (206) vs. Carmelo Marrero (205.8)
Emyr Bussade (170) vs. Jesse Lennox (170)
Rafael Dias (145.6) vs. L.C. Davis (145.6)
Alex Schoenauer (204) vs. Brendan Barrett (205.5)

We would post video of the weigh-ins, but it was just too intense for a Thursday.

— Keith Kizer and his NSAC boys weren’t able to bust any of the fighters from WEC 33. Fighters were tested for the normal perf-enhancing drugs and those of abuse. Brian Stann, Doug Marshall, Logan Clark, Alex Serdyukov, Richard Crunkilton, Chael Sonnen, Bryan Baker, Steve Cantwell, and Marcus Hicks were given a pass for their piss. Kizer said that the state of Nevada has had “no positive tests yet this year, although we have tested way more fighters in January through March 2008 than in any other January through March period of years past.” Brag, much?

We would post video of the piss — and other — tests, but it’s too early on a Thursday for that sort of thing.