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SHERK'S NOT GOING BACK TO CALI
Friday, February 08, 2008 - by Jeff Cain - MMAWeekly.com

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight titleholder Sean Sherk will fight anyone, anytime, and almost anywhere. But after being stripped of his belt for testing positive for the steroid Nandrolone following his title bout with Hermes Franca at UFC 73, something he vehemently denies, Sherk says he'll never fight in California again.

"There's no reason for me to ever fight in California again. The way they treated my case and the way they handled everything was so unprofessional that there's absolutely no way I'll ever fight in the state of California again, unless they get rid of the entire commission and hire a whole new commission," Sherk told MMAWeekly.

"There's so many things that they did wrong. They just messed up the entire thing and the whole time they basically told me, ‘Too bad. There's nothing you can do about it. We don't have rules, we don't have regulations, and we can do whatever we want.’ That's not a situation I'm ever going to let myself get put into again."

With his six-month suspension behind him, the 34-year-old fighter spoke candidly about his battle with the California State Athletic Commission, a battle Sherk isn't done pursuing.

"I'm done dealing with the commission itself. I still want to pursue the Nandrolone thing just because I didn't take it. They basically stripped everything from me because of that whole deal and I want to hold them accountable for that."

Not only is Sean Sherk unhappy with the CSAC's handling of his case, the No. 1 UFC lightweight contender voiced his displeasure with the laboratory that handled his samples.

“Another thing I'll never do is I'll never let my samples get tested by Quest Laboratories because they made a lot of mistakes as well. They made a lot of mistakes too, and they weren't willing to own up to the mistakes that they made. I'll never let myself get tested at Quest and I'll never fight in California."

From Sherk's perspective, not only was he stripped of his belt, the former champ missed out on sponsorship opportunities, the notoriety and exposure of being a UFC champion and suffered possibly irreparable damage to his reputation as a fighter.

"It was real frustrating to deal with that whole situation, not knowing when I was going to fight, who I was going to fight, where I was going to fight,” he commented. “Not knowing that was real frustrating. Sitting on the sidelines as long as I've been sitting on the sidelines isn't an easy thing to do, but I've been able to deal with it.

"It's hard. I've accomplished so much and I've overcome so much adversity in my career and in my life that you finally get to where you need to be and all of a sudden, bam, you're getting accused of doing something you didn't do and you've got to fight for your name, for your reputation after everything I've already been through. It's been a hard situation. It's going to take a lot of fixing. It is something that is fixable. It will take a lot of time to make it right I think."

Sherk takes on current UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn in his next fight, rumored to be the main event of the May 24 UFC pay-per-view from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.