UFC middleweight David Branch suspended two years for failed USADA test

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesWe now know why David Branch was pulled from his scheduled UFC Vancouver fight, and you won’t be seeing him in the Octagon any time soon.

USADA announced on Wednesday that the veteran middleweight failed an out-of-competition drug test, and he’s received a two-year ban after testing positive for the Growth Hormone Secretagogue (GHS) known as ipamorelin.

Branch, 37, tested positive for ipamorelin as the result of a urine sample he provided out-of-competition on May 24, 2019. Ipamorelin is in the class of Peptide Hormones, Growth Factors, Related Substances, and Mimetics and prohibited at all times under the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, which…