UFC heavyweight Josh Barnett has been granted a conditional license for his UFC 168 on December 28th against Travis Browne by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
The conditional license was approved by the NSAC on Thursday during their monthly meeting.
Part of his conditional license is that Barnett will be subject to random drug testing through a certified World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) lab, and the UFC will be paying for the drug testing.
WADA was been in place since 1999 and they have two accredited labs in the United States with the labs being located in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.
The UFC was represented by Marc Ratner at today’s meeting and stated the UFC would not have any issues in paying for the random drug testing for Barnett leading up to his December 28th fight.
Barnett becomes the first MMA fighter in Nevada to undergo random drug testing with a WADA lab. Along with being subject to random drug testing through WADA for his UFC 168 fight on December 28th, the NSAC will randomly drug test him until the end of 2014.
Along with granting a license for Barnett, the NSAC also granted licenses for Chael Sonnen and Josh Koscheck for UFC 167 on November 16th. Both fighters had to request a license since they are either 36 years old or will turn 36 this calendar year. The commissioners asked both fighters about their training before approving their request for a license.