Abdelaziz tells fighters to ‘never’ speak directly with USADA

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Controversial MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz advised fighters to not speak with the UFC’s official drug testing partner.

Ali Abdelaziz, who leads Dominance MMA and represents a slew of top UFC fighters, took to twitter yesterday to bemoan the efforts of official UFC drug-testing partner USADA (per MMA Mania). In his post, Abdelaziz — who is no stranger to controversy — seemed to encourage fighters to avoid communication with USADA.

“If you are an UFC fighter out there and USADA tried to call you and tried to talk to you directly. Never do that because their job is to get suspensions, it’s them or us,” wrote Abdelaziz.

Abdelaziz seemed to soften his stance a day later, writing “USADA is [a] very important part of this sport to keep all these cheating people out of this sport, sometimes I disagree on some things but we need them to keep this sport clean.”

Among Abdelaziz’s clients are UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo, UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and the highly ranked Frankie Edgar, Kelvin Gastelum, Cody Garbrandt and Zabit Magomedsharipov.

In recent years Abdelaziz has crept further into the MMA spotlight, most notably thanks to the bitter feud between his client Nurmagomedov and former UFC champion Conor McGregor. During Nurmagomedov and McGregor’s press tour in 2018, McGregor made headlines by accusing Abdelaziz of being a ‘terrorist snitch’.

Lately, Abdelaziz has attracted attention thanks to a pair of alleged physical altercations.

In April TMZ Sports published video of Abdelaziz, and his client Usman, appearing to brawl with UFC welterweight Colby Covington. That video was shot at a buffet-line inside the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

In October Abdelaziz was accused of attacking fellow MMA manager Abe Kawa at a PFL event. After this alleged incident the PFL told ESPN that Abdelaziz would not be allowed to attend their subsequent events.

Both of those incidents resulted in misdemeanor battery charges for Abdelaziz.

According to MMA Fighting’s Alexander K. Lee Abdelaziz settled the battery charge pertaining to the incident with Covington. He reported that Abdelaziz was ordered to pay a cash bond of $1,000 and that the charge had been dismissed.

Abdelaziz is currently awaiting trial over the assault charge connected to the alleged attack on Kawa.