King Green Claims UFC Title Holders Are Still Cheating
King Green says he can feel when an opponent is on PEDs, and he claims a lot of current UFC title holders are still cheating. The lightweight veteran did not produce a failed test. He produced a feeling from the mat and a warning he would not attach to a second name.
A fan asked how grappling Islam Makhachev compared with the rest of Green’s career. Green (36-17-1) lost to Makhachev by first-round TKO in February 2022 on short notice at a 160-pound catchweight, the last fight Makhachev had before he became a champion. Green said that night still sits in a different category.
“Makhachev; I said I felt something different,” Green said. “To be honest, bro; what I mean by that is, I’ve messed with thousands of people. And it’s the first time — or a couple of times — where I feel something, like when I go with guys who do drugs: ‘That feels like drugs.’ I could feel the difference.”
That is Green’s description of strength, not a laboratory result. Makhachev has not been publicly tied to a failed test in connection with that fight. Green is saying the body felt chemically different to him after decades of going with people, including men he believes were using.
He then widened the charge past one opponent. He said he has gone with other high-level fighters who gave him the same sensation and that he would not list them.
“I went with a few different other people, I’m not going to blow their names out there, because they are somebodies,” Green said. “If I say their names, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, you’re exposing people.’ I should expose you b*tches for cheating.”
Then he aimed at the belts. “There’s motherfckers in the UFC that still be cheating, OK? They still be cheating. These motherfckers cheat; and they’re a lot of your titleholders, there are a lot of those guys that you didn’t know about it. But they got the money to hide and they know what they are doing.”
The UFC runs an anti-doping program. Green’s claim is that money and know-how still beat it, and that the people who benefit include champions. He offered no paperwork, no dates, and no second name. He offered the same standard he applied to Makhachev: he has been in enough rooms to trust what his hands told him.
That is a serious accusation from a 40-year-old company man who has been on the roster for 13 years. It is also unproven in the form he delivered it. Feeling “like drugs” is not a failed sample. Title holders cheating is not a list. The gap between those sentences and a suspension is the entire story.
Green is on a four-fight streak, the last of them a last-second first-round TKO of Terrance McKinney at UFC 329 in July. He meets Esteban Ribovics (16-3) on Oct. 3 at UFC 332 in Salt Lake City. He is not a ranked title challenger. He is a veteran with a microphone and a memory of one night in 2022 that he cannot shake.
Makhachev is 29-1 and a UFC champion after the run that started once Green was out of the way. Green took that booking on about 10 days’ notice when Beneil Dariush withdrew. He got taken down and finished with punches at 3:23 of round one. Four years later he is still describing the strength as something other than skill.
The lightweight and welterweight pictures do not change on a Kick stream. Champions keep their belts until they lose them or a commission takes them. Green is asking fans to believe the ranking at the top is partly pharmaceutical, and that the people who can afford the program can also afford the cover.
He said he should expose the ones he will not name. He did not. He left the sport with an allegation that a lot of title holders are still cheating, that they know what they are doing, and that he can tell in the clinch. The next official answer, if there is one, will not come from Green’s hands. It will come from a test, a denial, or silence.
Green has a fight in three weeks. Ribovics is not a champion. The claim Green just made is about the men who are. Until he puts a name on the rest of that list, or a commission does, it remains his word against a roster that has not failed the tests he says they know how to beat.