UFC featherweight Grant Dawson is off Saturday’s UFC 246 card due to an issue with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, sources told ESPN on Wednesday.
The NSAC will review Dawson’s license to fight at a hearing Jan. 22, according to a meeting agenda released Wednesday. Per the agenda, the hearing will involve a “discussion and deliberation” on Dawson’s USADA out-of-competition drug-testing results. USADA is the UFC’s anti-doping partner. Dawson is not currently suspended.
Dawson was scheduled to fight Chas Skelly at UFC 246 on Saturday in Las Vegas. Skelly told ESPN that he was hoping for the bout to be rescheduled and no new opponent will be sought for him for this coming weekend. Both Dawson and Skelly wrote Tuesday on social media that the bout was off, but no reason was given at the time.
Dawson, 25, was provisionally suspended by USADA in 2017 for a positive drug test for a metabolite of the steroid oral Turinabol. He was cleared by the agency about a year later after an investigation found that he only tested positive for the long-term, M3 metabolite of the substance and there was no evidence that Dawson took a steroid while in the UFC and under USADA testing. It was a similar situation that UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones went through, when the M3 metabolite continued to pop up or “pulse” in his drug-test results in trace amounts nearly two years after the original positive test.
Like with Jones, USADA found no evidence of performance enhancement from the metabolite for Dawson and no evidence of a re-ingestion of a banned drug. This would have been Dawson’s first time competing in Nevada since that situation. The NSAC takes a more hands-on approach to anti-doping than other commissions.
Requests for comment from Dawson’s team, the NSAC and USADA were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Dawson (14-1) is considered a top prospect at featherweight. The Nebraska native is 2-0 in the UFC and coming off a first-round submission win over Mike Trizano in May.