Junior Dos Santos was preparing for a meeting with Francis Ngannou, looking to bounce back from a loss to UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, when he heard that teammate Marcos Rogerio de Lima had been flagged by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

“A friend of ours mentioned that it was a tainted supplement,” Dos Santos told MMAjunkie. “And I remember I made a comment like, ‘Was it, really? Because if he hadn’t taken anything, he wouldn’t have been caught.'”

Dos Santos would go on to regret the comment and apologize to his American Top Team stablemate. After all, not long after that, he was the one fighting to show that he was not a cheater.

Dos Santos was notified of a potential doping violation on Aug. 18. He was immediately pulled from the bout with Ngannou, and he soon found himself in the middle of a long, expensive process to prove that the banned substance found in his sample wasn’t taken knowingly.

While he succeeded, it proved harder than he’d ever imagine.

“I thought, with USADA’s experience and their understanding, that they would be able to say what was a contamination and what wasn’t,” Dos Santos said. “Not just because of the substance, but the amount, as well. But that’s not how it happened.”

We’ll get to what happened shortly.

After an investigation concluded that he, as well as Lima and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, had been victims of Brazilian compounding pharmacies that produced tainted supplements, Dos Santos accepted a six-month suspension that allowed him to fight fight right away.

Eager to get his career back on track after what amounted to an year-long layoff, Dos Santos (18-5 MMA, 12-4 UFC) was offered former WSOF champion Blagoy Inanov (16-1-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC). He didn’t immediately know who Inanov was, but he said yes right away.

“I’m not overlooking Blagoy, he was a champion in another organization, but honestly I didn’t even take anything about him into consideration,” Dos Santos said. “The only things I took into consideration were the ones about myself. …

“The most important thing is getting the car moving. Making things happen for me again and leave all this negative stuff in the past.”

Dos Santos and Ivanov headliner UFC Fight Night 133, which takes place July 14 at CenturyLink Arena in Boise, Idaho. The card is expected to air on FS1 following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass, though the full bout order and fight card haven’t been finalized.

As ready as he is to move forward, though, Dos Santos doesn’t have a problem with rehashing such a trying time in his career. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: He believes speaking out may be the only way to start a conversation that might change things.

“We need to discuss this more,” Dos Santos said. “We need to bring this subject to light so it doesn’t happen anymore. Because fighting is our life. It’s all that we do. Imagine, for instance, a case in which the person can’t defend themselves and get a longer suspension.

“This is an entire life on hold. This can’t happen. This is a very serious subject, so it’s important that we discuss it more and more.”

Now, let it be clear: Changing things, for Dos Santos, doesn’t meant getting rid of USADA. The heavyweight was an early supporter of the efforts to make MMA cleaner, and despite his disappointment with the way his own process unfolded, that remains.

“I know I’m in a sport that has suffered and still suffers with guys who try to find shortcuts to win,” Dos Santos said.

But “JDS” thinks there might be ways to make things more fair to those who prove that they didn’t knowingly cheat.

“My hope now is that USADA does more studies on this,” Dos Santos said. “It can’t be that with all their capabilities, all the experience they have, they can’t tell who was victim of contamination and who wasn’t. I know it isn’t that simple, but I hope they find a way.”

In his case, for instance: As his rep immediately revealed, the heavyweight was caught with hydrochlorothiazide – a diuretic that can also be used as a masking agent. The amount found of it in his sample, Dos Santos said, was minimal.

“I think in situations like these, they shouldn’t take the fighters off fights,” Dos Santos said. “They should keep the fighter in the fight, and in case culpability was proven, then they could penalize them in an even harsher way. I know it sounds scary, but what’s happening is that we’re getting punished before we’re even judged.”

Financially, the suspension was a burden on multiple angles. Other than his regular lawyer, Dos Santos had to hire a specialist to help with his specific process. He also had several of the more than 20 supplements he was taking at the time tested – each costing anywhere from $500 to $1,000 to test.

His income from fighting, of course, was paused. And he lost a commentary gig that he regularly performed for big UFC cards on network television in Brazil. Thankfully, Dos Santos had a solid enough career that he was able to handle it.

But that doesn’t account for the other, less palpable toll.

“I have no words to describe it because it was a very sad situation,” Dos Santos said. “Being accused of something that I always defended, which was USADA’s presence, making this a clean sport. And suddenly to have people labeling me a liar? That was heavy. That was very heavy for me.”

Despite the frustration of finding himself under suspicion for something he’d always been so adamantly against, Dos Santos was quick to return to the gym. In fact, he never really stopped training – or keeping a positive attitude as he did so at the gym.

“JDS” says he found a lot of comfort in the overwhelming support that, aside from the occasional online hater, he received all around. His faith in himself as an athlete and a fighter, too, hasn’t wavered one bit. But mostly, there was knowing that, “regardless of what they thought, my conscience was clear.”

With that in the past, it’s on to the future. And, for the 34-year-old heavyweight, that is now about picking up the pace.

Even before the dealings with USADA, he hadn’t been nearly as active as he’d like: From 2014 on, he’s fought only once a year. In the fertile “is ring rust real” debate, Dos Santos sides with those who believe that long layoffs can be a real issue for returning fighters.

Take ATT’s own Gleison Tibau, for instance, who returned after two years only to be quickly knocked out by Islam Makhachev earlier this year.

“The fight, more than just knowing technique and being prepared, is about timing,” Dos Santos said. “And you only get that from fighting. Take Tibau for instance. He was flying at the gym. He was training so well. And then, came fight time, and that punch landed.

“Does that mean he’s a lesser fighter? No. But it’s about timing. He didn’t have the right timing to attack, defend himself. A fight is difference than practice. As hard as practice can be, it isn’t the same.”

While he is still focused on reclaiming he heavyweight throne, he is taking it one fight a time. Dos Santos knows that beating a UFC newcomer doesn’t necessarily do much to advance his standings within the division, but he’s not doing a lot of math when it comes to that, either.

“I want to get things moving,” Dos Santos. “I’m very motivated. I’m training so well. I’m training in a way that’s even surprising to me, because it feels like I got that extra motivation that I had at the beginning. It’s even hard to explain this feeling, but you get that eagerness, that hunger to be there, to fight, to show it, to win.”

Still, even after champ Miocic spoiled Dos Santos’ third try at reclaiming the crown he once took from fellow ex-champ Cain Velasquez, Dos Santos knows one thing about his career.

“In my head, if I’m not the champion now, there’s something wrong,” Dos Santos said. “It’s because I made mistakes or things didn’t happen as they should. Because in my head, I should be champion. That’s what I work for. That’s how I feel about it, and that’s why I took the fight: More than saying things or waiting for certain opponents, more than just promote, I need to do. And that’s what I want now.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 133, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.