UPDATE: 9:13 a.m. Eastern Time
Shortly after this article was published, Marrocco responded to Hunt’s callout.
Lots of shoot the messenger in this industry. “Interview” was 2 minutes, & quotes were pretty memorable. At no point did hunt say OTR.
— Steven Marrocco (@MMAjunkieSteven) December 18, 2013
— End of Update —
UFC heavyweight Mark Hunt was just quoted as going off on testosterone replacement therapy, but according to “The Super Samoan” himself, he never intended to.
MMA Junkie broke the news Tuesday night that Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva failed his UFC Fight Night 33 post-fight drug test for elevated levels of testosterone, and one of their co-authors on the original story, Steven Marrocco, reached out to Hunt for his reaction.
“S–t, I need to get on some of this s–t. F–k, I don’t know how these guys are doing this s–t. I should get some of that s–t, too,” Hunt is quoted as saying.
At a glance, the quote doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary from a straight shooter like Hunt.
However, the former K-1 kickboxer was irate when he read the story, based on his latest Facebook post.
As the initial report stated, despite receiving a TRT exemption for the event, “Bigfoot’s” testosterone levels were still outside the allowable levels.
UFC Fight Night 33 took place in Brisbane, Australia, and as is typical for events outside of North America and Brazil, the UFC acted as their own athletic commission.
Given the latest turn of events, Hunt will be awarded Silva’s $50,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus and Silva has been handed down a nine-month suspension.
After the two massive heavyweights battled to a draw after 25 massively entertaining minutes of action, Hunt cracked the heavyweight top 10, coming in at No. 9, according to the UFC’s official rankings.
To be fair, many journalists adhere to the standard that unless an interviewee says something is off the record, that information is considered on the record and is therefore available for publication.
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com.
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