UFC & Vitor - Sketchy Drug Testing (UFC 152)

[REDDzone]

Wow, news from Josh Gross. Vitor had elevated testosterone levels prior to his fight with Jon Jones, his testosterone being over 2.5x the normal level. The ufc was actually in possession of these results prior to the fight, and they did...nothing about it. The fight was in Ontario and the commission there deferred to the ufc in regards to regulating doping issues, and ufc did not pull Belfort from the fight or disclose Belfort's synthetic testosterone use to his opponent Jon Jones.

http://deadspin.com/a-sketchy-drug-test-didn-t-stop-vitor-belfort-from-figh-1717739475

[Jasen777]

Obviously some shady stuff on the UFC's part.

And this confirms Jones did indeed beat TRT (or whatever) Vitor, which puts that high on his best wins list.

Also it's really strange how the UFC treated Jones...

[REDDzone]

Between this and their partner USADA doing their sketchy "retroactive TUEs", I wouldn't trust these crooks as far as I could throw them man.

Let's recap. Jones opponent hurt, the ufc throws him under the bus like they have never thrown anyone under. Give him Belfort, let Belfort cheat his a$$ off, find out about it, and then don't tell Jones he is fighting a juciehead.

Also, pretty sure this solidifies Belfort as the biggest cheater in the sport's history, passing even guys like Chael and Barnett. Vitor has probably had more dirty than clean tests at this point. No wonder they stashed him in Brazil for so many fights where they could "regulate" him instead of having the athletic commissions do it.

[Nemesis21]

[REDDzone]

Okay maybe this wasn't threadworthy lol.

[REDDzone]

Bones Knows. And he's not happy:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/malkikawa/status/647000993457119232[/tweet]

[Bernman]

That's not surprising. The only surprising thing is they got caught. They just wanted to create the illusion they were leveling the playing field, while allowing fighters to actually still be super-men (when it was convenient to them, until Reem got suspended and Belfort decapitated their British cash cow), and illegal fights to take place. The show must go on.

I'm sure plenty of fighters would take legal action over stuff like this for fraud and endangering safety, if not for machismo and Zuffa having the sport by the balls.

[cowboyronnie]

reading that deadspin article:

The Nevada commission fined Belfort $10,000 and suspended him from competition for nine months, a penalty he ignored by fighting in England a half-year later. Blaming doctors and supplements increasingly became go-to moves for fighters caught doping by state regulators.

I thought that was verbodden. He got away with it. Nick Diaz isn't a golden boy, unfortunately.

[cowboyronnie]

Novitsky:

Dana White and UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta listened while Weidman verbally attacked Belfort ahead of UFC 187 on May 23. Afterwards, Zuffa executives pulled aside the middleweight champion and the New Yorker’s trainer, Ray Longo, to explain what the champion and his team called cheating really wasn’t.

Among those who attempted to talk Weidman down was Jeff Novitzky, the former FDA and IRS agent who, using unorthodox methods, chased down Lance Armstrong like the peloton. Hired to oversee the creation and implementation of UFC’s drug testing regime—“The most comprehensive anti-doping policy in professional sports,” claimed UFC senior vice president and chief operating officer Lawrence Epstein in a press release—Novitzky said that even though Belfort’s levels were inconsistent and, seemingly, high, several factors were at play that made this test result not such a big deal.

“With Lorenzo, it’s all jokes and laughs,” Longo said. “[Novitzky] walks in it’s like I was back in high school. This guy’s not **** around. I think he just wanted to put everyone’s mind at rest that it wasn’t what it looked like. He was saying that [the lab results] didn’t mean that they were cheating, but they’re looking at it.”

Previously that meant Zuffa’s self-regulation and all the natural conflicts that arise out of such a thing, leading to at least one situation in which a questionable test result did not get in the way of a major event for the UFC. How many close calls were there? What about outright failures? Limited transparency makes it difficult to know the answers to those questions, and test results don’t get emailed out by accident every day.

Three years later, just by simple comparison, USADA, for all its faults, would appear to be the better option.

[REDDzone]

Yea think about that. Its like the Anderson thing, tested once out of competition in his life and fails, brings doubt to the whole career.

The ufc let's Vitor cheat, they accidentally EMAIL it to a bunch of people. Now, what are the odds that this is the very first time it happened? The very first time they get down with some shady stuff, they accidentally email the world about it? Nah.

[CPT]

When this came up on TFATK, Schaub pointed out that Lorenzo and Vitor are really close. Didn't know that. Seems relevant. Although if anything it might create the impression that they did this to help out a buddy, when they've probably swept other tests under the rug for business.

[REDDzone]

Could you even imagine if Chitor had kicked Bones head off or snapped his arm in two that night? What if Bones had been seriously injured? Would people care more about this then?

Don't just look at the end result of this. Think of what the ufc could have let happen here. What if the ufc let someone cheat unbeknownst to their opponent and the opponent got concussed like Grant or Holdsworth?

[Bernman]

Could you even imagine if Chitor had kicked Bones head off or snapped his arm in two that night? What if Bones had been seriously injured? Would people care more about this then?

Don't just look at the end result of this. Think of what the ufc could have let happen here. What if the ufc let someone cheat unbeknownst to their opponent and the opponent got concussed like Grant or Holdsworth?

Or Pettis. I'm hacking their accounts as we speak before they e-shred the documents.

[cowboyronnie]

You gotta choose, Bern: Sergio-Not-On-The-Card Pettis Or Clean-RDA Pettis.

Sure, either one would be totally invincible. But we are only allowed one Parallel-Reality-Excuse Pettis.

[REDDzone]

Clean-RDA Pettis doesn't even make sense.

[Bernman]

It's really a false dilemma. I choose both because they both fit.

Hypothetically though, gun to my head, I'd choose watching his brother get ko'ed because I knew what kind of relationship they had, and I highly doubt normal Pettis would be impotent from the opening bell against even roided to the gils RDA. It's the opposite of what Pettis was known for. Never out of the fight and his kicks could floor a 200+ lb guy. Hurt Bendo and Melendez with most strikes seemingly. Don't even act like you weren't marveling about dem kicks back then. Roids don't make your head made of steel.

Anyways, let's not get into this seriously again. That was said half kidding. You know how I feel about the Pettis-RDA fight. That's probably not going to change. Hopefully we find out the truth in the end. That's a slow process in MMA, unfortunately.

[cowboyronnie]

Clean-RDA Pettis doesn't even make sense.

why unt?

[cowboyronnie]

They did talk about this on the FightCompanion. I think I must have been drunk or exhausted cos barely remember. So nothing to report. But I would love to know what Rogan has to say.

[REDDzone]

They did talk about this on the FightCompanion. I think I must have been drunk or exhausted cos barely remember. So nothing to report. But I would love to know what Rogan has to say.

He completely swept it under the rug, and either down played or didn't understand the issue to begin with. Unless they talk about it again, I'm only halfway through. You can tell what Brendan thinks though.

[cowboyronnie]

That would have been the same section I heard. Huh. He might sincerely not know the details, he doesn't seem to be tracking the UFC recently. LOL, he didn't know what Road To Japan even was. He was like, 'there was a Japanese TUF?'