ONE Championship’s Ellis Barboza fails drugs test, banned for 6 months, has Thongpoon win removed
- British Muay Thai fighter caught out by in competition test at ONE Fight Night 17
- Barboza’s beat Thongpoon PKSaenchaigym by third round TKO, but result has been changed to no contest
ONE Championship fighter Ellis Barboza has been banned for six months and had his win over Thongpoon PKSaenchaigym overturned after he failed a drugs test.
The British Muay Thai fighter failed an in competition test at ONE Fight Night 17, where he beat Thongpoon by third round TKO in Muay Thai catchweight bout.
That fight on December 8 has now been changed to a no contest.
ONE Championship introduced drug testing protocols in 2022, and the programme is run by International Doping Tests and Management which is a subsidiary of Drug Free Sport International.
Barboza will go down as the first fighter to be caught out in 2024, but he is unlikely to be the last. The Englishman joins a list that also includes Petchtanong Petchfergus, Kairat Akhmetov, Julie Mezabarba, Martin Batur and Jasur Mirzamukhamedov.
Petchtanong remains the only champion to have been caught out by the testing team. He was stripped of his bantamweight kickboxing title and handed a one-year ban after failing an out of competition test last June.