Barnett’s steroid positive test leaves Emelianenko scrambling

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Fedor Emelianenko and his promoter, Affliction, are scrambling to find a replacement fighter for their Aug. 1 main event at ‘Affliction Trilogy’ in Anaheim after originally scheduled opponent Josh Barnett tested positive for steroids.

Barnett’s positive result was confirmed to news outlets by the California State Athletic Commission on Wednesday, a second positive test for the Washington fighter. He also tested positive fighting in the UFC in 2002.

On his MySpace page, headlined, ‘Only the strong survive. Decimate the weak,’ Barnett explained as quoted by USA Today, ‘What I can say is that when applying for my license, the CSAC asked for me to submit a urine sample for testing prior to granting my license as they do with everyone, I believe. It was not a random test. I had no reason to believe there would be any issues and went in to submit my sample at the earliest possible opportunity on June 25th. I never once thought there would be a problem.’

While the moody Barnett deals with the repercussions -- including the review of his ‘B’ sample -- the challenge now is to find an opponent for Fedor in what will probably be his final fight with Affliction.

The list of possible opponents is likely one-name deep: Vitor Belfort. Strikeforce has announced that its fighters, Brett Rogers and Fabricio Werdum, are not available.

Affliction’s Tom Atencio will address the situation later today. We’ll have more at Fabulous Forum and Twitter.com/latimespugmire.

--Lance Pugmire