Author: Chad Dundas

Anthony Johnson Gets Rare Second Chance to Throw His Weight Around in UFC

Here is Anthony Johnson’s chance to make an impact.
The fighter whose name was once synonymous with failed weigh-ins is back as of Tuesday morning, and he’s booked into an instant light heavyweight contender bout against Phil Davis at UFC 1…

Here is Anthony Johnson’s chance to make an impact.

The fighter whose name was once synonymous with failed weigh-ins is back as of Tuesday morning, and he’s booked into an instant light heavyweight contender bout against Phil Davis at UFC 172.

Johnson was last seen in the Octagon a bit more than two years ago, when he missed the middleweight limit by a whopping 11 pounds for a fight against Vitor Belfort after doctors advised him to abandon his cut. The fight was ultimately contested at a 197-pound catchweight, and Belfort won by first-round submission.

Like many of Belfort’s most recent appearances, that win came in Brazil, and he used it to springboard into a light heavyweight title shot against champion Jon Jones after Lyoto Machida turned down the chance.

The UFC used it as an opportunity to release Johnson.

Now, he’s back, with his weight stabilized and riding a six-fight win streak on the independent circuit. All it took for Johnson to cure his issues with the scale was to make the 20-pound leap to light heavyweight, where he’s crafted four consecutive TKO stoppages since August of 2012.

He also mixed a catchweight victory over David Branch and a heavyweight win over Andrei Arlovski into his 6-0 run.

His most recent triumph—a 2:03 knockout of Mike Kyle in World Series of Fighting last month—had the Internet clamoring for the UFC to give him a second chance.

He’s got it in the form of Davis, who has been inactive since a split-decision victory over Machida last August.

Excluding the hullabaloo over the judges’ verdict, Davis has been among the best of the 205-pound class, going 8-1-1 since joining the UFC in 2010. If Johnson can manage to unseat him from his comfortable spot among the light heavyweight elite, it would fashion “Rumble” into an immediate title threat in a division that sorely needs them.

It would also provide Johnson with a once-in-a-career opportunity to erase the mistakes of his past.

His original four-and-a-half year stint with the big show was something of a comedy of errors, after all.

On three different occasions, Johnson was awarded one of the UFC’s performance-based end-of-the-night bonuses, but he also missed weight just as many times. After starting as a welterweight, he eventually swelled to middleweight, but even that couldn’t solve his problems making the limit.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems absurd that Johnson spent the first 15 fights of his professional career trying to make 170 and 185 pounds. He lost two of the three fights where he missed weight and—aside from his bizarre defeat to Kevin Burns after Johnson was poked in the eye—otherwise went 6-1 in the UFC.

In other words, he was good, not great, but better when he didn’t have to kill himself to make weight.

Blame some of those issues on youthful inexperience, perhaps. Johnson came to the Octagon at 22 years old and after just three professional fights.

Now, he’s 29 and a veteran of 20 MMA contests. He’ll have no more excuses and no more second chances. If he wants to make a mark on the landscape of this sport, he needs to do it now.

Because of his past, matchmakers aren’t about to make it easy on him.

Against Davis, he’ll almost certainly be a significant underdog, and it remains to be seen if his sprint though a number of smaller companies will translate to success in the UFC’s 205-pound division.

But Johnson has finally found a home, and at least fans will get the chance to see what he can do in his natural weight class. 

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Vacating Title to Fight Injured Anthony Pettis Would Be Risky Move for Jose Aldo

It took UFC President Dana White all of about four minutes on Saturday to negotiate terms for a superfight between featherweight champion Jose Aldo and lightweight champ Anthony Pettis.
With the Octagon still warm from his shellacking of Ricardo Lamas …

It took UFC President Dana White all of about four minutes on Saturday to negotiate terms for a superfight between featherweight champion Jose Aldo and lightweight champ Anthony Pettis.

With the Octagon still warm from his shellacking of Ricardo Lamas at UFC 169, Aldo told the first reporter to question him at the post-fight press conference that he wanted a bout with Pettis.

Aldo checked with White, White checked with Aldo—the process only slowed because the two men were working through Aldo’s interpreter—and it was done. There was no need to ask Pettis, who had confirmed his interest earlier in the evening on social media.

“Sounds like we’ve got a fight,” White said during the official press conference feed on UFC’s YouTube account. “There you go. That was easy.”

It sure was.

Maybe a little bit too easy.

Granted, Aldo vs. Pettis is a tantalizing prize for fans, fighters and UFC brass alike.

After watching Aldo breeze past Lamas in overwhelming but uninspired fashion last weekend, conventional wisdom now says lightweight is the place for him. There will be bigger challenges and bigger paydays at 155 pounds and moving up to face Pettis seems far more interesting—and profitable—than rematches against Chad Mendes or Cub Swanson.

Despite all the smiles and the easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy fashion in which this superfight appeared to fall into our laps, however, it’s far from a done deal.

In vacating his title to move up, Aldo would be risking an awful lot, all for a fight that may not even come off as scheduled.

There is still the small matter of Pettis’ health to clear up, after all.

The 27-year-old lightweight kingpin has been out of action since mid-November rehabbing a knee injury and the UFC is said to be targeting early July for his next fight. Pettis declared to MMAJunkie.com that he’ll be ready, but the fight company’s own doctor has raised significant doubts.

“I would pray for him,” orthopedic surgeon Robert Klapper said on UFC Tonight (h/t MMAFighting.com) a couple of weeks ago. “Coming back in July? That’s really optimistic.”

It’s possible the UFC knows something the public doesn’t about Pettis’ recovery, but it still feels like a roll of the dice for Aldo. It’d be a shame for him to give up his title, make the move to lightweight and then discover he’d have to wait longer than expected for the champion to get right.

Or, worse yet, accept another opponent.

Aldo would be the first champion of the Zuffa era to willingly vacate his belt in order to chase another title within the organization. Let’s not underestimate the perils inherent in a move like that.

Former heavyweight champion Bas Rutten tried to do something similar back in 1999. Rutten wanted to move down to fight Frank Shamrock in what was then called the “middleweight” division. Unfortunately, that superfight never happened after Rutten suffered multiple injuries while still in training.

As a result, he was forced to vacate the UFC title and retire from the sport. He never fought in the Octagon again, though he returned for a one-off bout in the short-lived WFA organization in 2006.

Aldo is not in the same position as El Guapo—who was already in his mid-30s in ’99—but Rutten serves as a cautionary tale nonetheless.

The five months between now and July are an eternity in the fast-paced and unpredictable world of MMA. While we wait, any number of things could come along and scuttle the superfight, potentially leaving Aldo holding an empty bag.

There would be no take-backs either. The peanut gallery is already at work advocating a bout between Mendes and Swanson to fill his shoes at featherweight.

What would Aldo do if Pettis’ return is delayed? What if erstwhile No. 1 contender T.J. Grant is suddenly cleared by doctors to return from his concussion? What if Aldo himself—no stranger to the injured reserve—suffers an injury and has to pull out of the fight?

All of this is to say nothing of the possibility that Aldo moves up, loses to Pettis and must immediately go back down to reclaim what rightfully belongs to him.

If any of the above happens, we might end up wondering what all this superfight hysteria was about in the first place.

So far, Aldo has managed to fight his way past every obstacle he’s encountered during his 25-fight career. Here’s hoping his move to 155 pounds is no different.

We’d hate to see injury or unforeseen delays leave him as a champion without a country or title.

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UFC 169 One for the Record Books but Nothing to Write Home About

This was not one to tell your grandkids about.
I mean, unless your grandkids want to grow up to be ringside officials.
UFC 169 made a bit of fairly inauspicious history on Saturday night, setting a record for most decisions during a single UFC event. T…

This was not one to tell your grandkids about.

I mean, unless your grandkids want to grow up to be ringside officials.

UFC 169 made a bit of fairly inauspicious history on Saturday night, setting a record for most decisions during a single UFC event. Ten of 12 fights went the distance, as Jose Aldo and Renan Barao both retained their titles and Alistair Overeem staved off Frank Mir.

“We broke a record tonight that I’m not very proud of,” said UFC president Dana White at the postfight news conference, via MMA Fighting. “Most decisions ever in UFC history; that’s not one you’re going to hear me bragging about at press conferences.”

The Super Bowl weekend show is usually one of the biggest attractions on the UFC’s annual pay-per-view slate, but expectations for this year’s were already tempered weeks ago.

The loss of Dominick Cruz to yet another injury robbed UFC 169 of its much-ballyhooed bantamweight title unification bout as well as much of its sizzle, even after popular former WEC champion Urijah Faber entered the picture as his replacement.

Before that, a rumored light heavyweight championship fight between Jon Jones and Glover Teixeira was briefly linked to the event but then pushed back to April.

Without Jones or Cruz, UFC 169 never established much momentum and—despite the fact that it featured dueling featherweight and bantamweight championship fights—was not expected to be a hot seller.

In the end, the action in the cage mirrored those tepid expectations.

The cliché about UFC events that don’t look great on paper is that they often exceed expectations. This one didn’t, instead leaving a good portion of fans wondering what exactly they’d paid $54.95 to watch in high definition.

It was not the best nor the worst fight card in recent memory, but certainly one of the most nondescript. Each of the seven preliminary bouts required the judges’ scorecards, and then all but the first and last fights on the PPV did the same.

One of the few bright spots came during the curtain-jerker, when Abel Trujillo and Jamie Varner turned the second round of their lightweight clash into a back-and-forth slugfest. For much of that frame, it appeared Varner was on the verge of victory—until Trujillo uncorked a right hook that left him unconscious and crashing to the mat on his face.

It was a stunning comeback KO for Trujillo, and it was about as good as things were going to get on this night.

As the most noteworthy finish on the card, it turned out to be a lucrative one. Trujillo pocketed a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus, while he and Varner won $75,000 each for Fight of the Night.  

The only other main card stoppage—Barao’s first-round TKO of Faber—was marred by regrettable intervention from referee Herb Dean. Though Faber had been hurt twice during early stand-up exchanges, he appeared to have his wits about him and immediately protested after Dean stepped in to save him from a barrage of ineffectual hammerfists.

Both Dean and Faber handled the aftermath with grace, though the UFC president could not help but crack wise about it.

“It was the cherry on top of the 10-decision catastrophe,” White said of the stoppage.

In what might turn out to be his last fight as featherweight champion, Aldo turned in a fitting microcosm of his entire career inside the Octagon.

He outclassed Ricardo Lamas over five full rounds, looking technically flawless and flashing his awesome power. There was absolutely nothing to critique about his performance, except that it lacked some intangible but ultimately essential quality.

He brutalized Lamas’ legs with kicks and peppered him with pinpoint punches but never appeared to put the 4-to-1 underdog in serious jeopardy. That has been the one drawback of Aldo’s run in the UFC so far: There has been a great deal of wow factor but very few wow moments.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of Aldo’s fighting style if he indeed leaves the 145-pound division behind for a possible superfight with lightweight champion Anthony Pettis. Prior to coming to the UFC, he had 15 stoppages in 18 wins, but four of his six fights with the big show have gone to decision.

He was once known as a fearsome finisher, and it would very much behoove Aldo to get back to that if he’s going to fulfill his sky-high potential as a star.

Not that you could particularly blame him on this night. The monotony of UFC 169 was bigger than any one man.

Even the heavyweights—Overeem and Mir—needed the full 15 minutes to conduct their business.

Overeem battered and bloodied the former UFC champion over three rounds. Despite the fact Mir’s offense was historically bad, however, The Reem (a guy who amassed nine consecutive stoppages from 2007 to 2010) couldn’t finish.

Aside from the record number of decisions, there was not much about UFC 169 that will linger very long in our collective memories. In the new reality of the organization’s live-event schedule, that’s to be expected.

Even in this shortest month of the year, the fight company still has two more live shows to get through—Fight Night 36 on Feb. 15 and UFC 170 on Feb. 22. For better and worse, that crush of events won’t give us much time to dwell on this clunker.

Perhaps those back-to-back middleweight contender bouts will wash the taste out of our mouths. If not, then it’s a good bet that Ronda Rousey’s title defense against Sara McMann will do the trick. 

Maybe we’ll even see something worth saving for the grandkids.

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UFC 169: For Jose Aldo, Is Being the Best Featherweight on Earth Good Enough?

To fully appreciate Jose Aldo, you had to see him in the WEC.
As he prepares to meet heavy underdog Ricardo Lamas on Saturday at UFC 169, while rumors of a summer superfight with Anthony Pettis swirl, it’s impossible to assess his time as the UFC…

To fully appreciate Jose Aldo, you had to see him in the WEC.

As he prepares to meet heavy underdog Ricardo Lamas on Saturday at UFC 169, while rumors of a summer superfight with Anthony Pettis swirl, it’s impossible to assess his time as the UFC featherweight kingpin without a little historical perspective.

Make no mistake: Aldo has been great in the Octagon, but to know him at his full potential, you had to witness his eight-fight rise through the UFC’s kid brother organization from 2008-2010.

You had to watch him gnaw through the legs of guys like Alexandre Franca Nogueira, Jonathan Brookins and Urijah Faber with his lashing kicks. You had to see him counter Rolando Perez’s jab with a crushing knee at WEC 38, flurry on Chris Mickle at WEC 39 or suspend the laws of gravity to score his double flying-knee knockout of Cub Swanson at WEC 41.

Sorry to wax nostalgic, but you just had to be there.

If you were, then you understood that by the time the UFC absorbed the WEC at the start of 2011, Aldo was among the biggest spoils. The fight company anointed him its inaugural 145-pound champion, and it felt as though he was poised to become a breakout star.

Not just in our little corner of the world, either. With his fearsome blend of speed and power, his superb takedown defense and his knack for highlight-reel finishes, he appeared destined to become a mainstay on SportsCenter’s Top Plays.

At the risk of drifting too far into hyperbole, it seemed like Aldo had at least an outside chance of becoming the UFC’s answer to Manny Pacquiao—an immense pay-per-view draw and the guy who would finally convince the world that MMA’s lightest weight classes were also its best.

And this is where things get tricky.

Aldo has marched to a 5-0 record in the Octagon and—in the void left behind by Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre—has become the consensus No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. All told, it’s been nearly eight years since he lost a fight.

It seems silly—impossible, even—to say that’s not good enough.

Yet nearly three years in, crossover success hasn’t materialized. If anything, Aldo has faded into the scenery a bit, slowed by injury and surrounded by other stars in the UFC’s deep talent pool.

The jaw-dropping finishes that typified his early career (when he amassed 15 stoppages in 18 wins) haven’t been as abundant in the Octagon, and three of his five bouts in the big show have gone the distance.

His explosive KO of Chad Mendes at UFC 142 was nice but was marred by an egregious fence-grab 49 seconds before the end. Aldo’s other lone stoppage—of Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163—came only when Jung suffered a shoulder injury after three-and-a-half fairly tepid rounds.

Aldo gassed badly down the stretch against Mark Hominick at UFC 129, and though he escaped with a unanimous-decision win, questions about his cardio lingered. Likewise, his scorecard victories over former lightweights Kenny Florian and Frankie Edgar were clear-cut but far from wipeouts.

Amid all of it, there have been issues with his health. A neck ailment delayed his UFC debut and continued to hamper him following the Hominick fight. More recently, foot injuries forced him out of a scheduled meeting with Erik Koch and sidelined him again in the wake of the Jung bout last August.

Granted, there have been streaks of brilliance. Witness Aldo stuffing Mendes’ early takedown attempts, making a show of slipping Hominick’s punches in the second round and firing off a spinning kick/flying knee combo to end the first round against Jung.

It would be a grave exaggeration to say he has failed, but he also hasn’t quite lived up to the sky-high expectations set by his reign of terror in the WEC. Perhaps that’s the natural order of things now that he’s a few years older (still just 27) and competing in a featherweight class that is clogged with stiffer competition.

Still, you can’t blame hardcore fans if they pine for the days when Aldo looked a generation ahead of the rest.

This weekend, he’ll be close to a 7-to-1 favorite over Lamas. They’ll play second fiddle to Renan Barao and Faber on what might turn out to be one of the UFC’s lowest-selling PPVs of the year, but the matchup could be a good chance for Aldo to recapture a bit of that youthful spark.

Afterward, his future appears uncertain. UFC president Dana White said on Thursday that a Pettis vs. Aldo superfight was not a sure thing but mentioned he’d “green light” it if Aldo would agree to vacate the 145-pound title, per Chuck Mindenhall of MMA Fighting. 

White added: “He’s had the belt forever, he’d fought everybody and he should just drop the belt and move up to 55 and take on Pettis. It would be awesome.”

The prospect of Aldo at lightweight is enticing, especially considering that division’s current injury-related vacuum at the top. Matching his style against Pettis’ high-octane offense would be a surefire draw and a fight seemingly impossible to predict.

It would be far and away the best opportunity of Aldo’s career. He would have the chance to be a bigger star at lightweight, both literally and figuratively, and moving up would allow him to challenge for No. 1 pound-for-pound honors. He might even finally take a few baby steps toward being the star we thought he could be a few years ago.

But it would be a defeat for featherweights. The lightest weight classes have come a long way since joining the UFC, but the loss of the division’s dominant champion would be a setback for the marketability of 145 pounds.

Once, when he was the class of the WEC, it felt as though Aldo had the skills to elevate the entire featherweight division. Now, it seems like in order to elevate his own star, he’ll be forced to leave for a bigger pond.

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As Alistair Overeem Faces Must-Win Bout, Fans Wonder Which ‘Reem’ Will Show Up

On the heels of back-to-back losses and sporting a 1-2 promotional record, Saturday’s showdown with Frank Mir at UFC 169 likely represents Alistair Overeem’s last chance in the Octagon.
To be honest, it doesn’t figure to be a garden p…

On the heels of back-to-back losses and sporting a 1-2 promotional record, Saturday’s showdown with Frank Mir at UFC 169 likely represents Alistair Overeem’s last chance in the Octagon.

To be honest, it doesn’t figure to be a garden party for Mir, either. While UFC brass won’t confirm whether the loser can expect to find a pink slip hanging in his locker, we can all see the writing on the wall.

Writing done in 6’4″, 265-pound block letters.

Letters that have been getting smaller and smaller over time.

Despite the fact the UFC hasn’t been quite so quick to send fighters packing recently—lest it gets a sliver of Viacom’s $4 billion in cash!—this is still a must-win fight for both Mir and Overeem. Even if it doesn’t result in a dismissal, a loss here probably dooms either man’s chance of once again ascending into the heavyweight elite.

For Mir, this just seems like the natural order of things. After nearly 14 years and 22 fights in the UFC, it’s a bit less jarring to think he might be in the twilight of his career with the big show.

Overeem, though? He came to the Octagon just two years ago, with sky-high expectations and amid an 11-0-1 run on the independent scene that included him winning the Strikeforce championship.

To think this could be his last shot at greatness puts even more emphasis on what is the defining question every time he fights: Which version of Overeem will show up, the Uber or the Under?

For years—as he was tearing off a string of first-round victories overseas—Overeem was one of MMA’s most scrutinized fighters. You couldn’t look at the man’s physique, register his massive weight gains and not at least wonder.

Not if you’d paid any attention to the dominant storyline in professional sports during the last, say, 20 years.

Especially when a guy’s nickname is a play on the German word for “superman.”

When Overeem tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone prior to a scheduled meeting with Junior dos Santos in April of 2012, all of the whispers appeared to be confirmed.

In the wake of it, his bouts have become two-part affairs. There is the actual fight, but there is also the show before the show. There is the Friday afternoon weigh-in, when he strips off his shirt, steps on the scale and then we all run to the Internet to compare what we’ve just seen against previous weigh-in photos.

As he approaches this potentially career-defining fight with Mir, which will it be? Will we see the ripped He Man who tattered Brock Lesnar at UFC 141 or the somewhat softer, more normal-looking human who dropped a third-round knockout loss to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva at UFC 156?

Or will we see a third man? Will we see someone more like the slimmer, slightly better conditioned Overeem who showed up to fight Travis Browne last August, a full 9.5 pounds shy of the heavyweight limit at 255.5?

This is silly, of course. It’s a pointless exercise that proves nothing. It may not have any bearing at all on what happens the next night when the actual fighting begins. We might even be imagining these subtle shifts in Overeem’s body.

But still, we’ll look. We’ll wonder.

We’ll wonder if the UFC has been giving him the Vitor Belfort treatment, testing the daylights out of him even as Overeem completed much of his pre-fight camp in Thailand. We’ll wonder if after this fight, stories will emerge alleging his testosterone levels were dangerously low, as they did following the Silva loss.

We may also puzzle over which Overeem we’ll get when the referee drops the hanky on Saturday night. Will he storm out of his corner and obliterate Mir, like the fearsome UFC 141-version of him did to Lesnar? Or will he seem somehow less endowed with killer instinct, less explosive and less terrifying, like the guy we saw against both Silva and Browne?

All of this we will instantly extrapolate, based on his appearance.

Is that fair? Maybe not.

But it’s just a side effect of being one of the most talked-about, analyzed athletes in your sport.

It’s the downside of failing a surprise drug test just one fight after joining the biggest MMA promotion on the planet.

It’s the unhappy coincidence of showing up for your must-win fight just a few days after the president of that company made his strongest statements to date condemning testosterone use in MMA.

In the end, it’s the cost of being “Ubereem,” who after a failed drug test and two years of middling results in the UFC now must shoulder the heavy burden of our doubts.

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Dana White Joins Doctors in Denouncing TRT, Now Let’s Hope the Hardline Sticks

When the day comes that testosterone replacement therapy is finally, mercifully banned in MMA, we may well look back on this week as a tipping point.
Much of the years-long argument on the subject suddenly seemed moot on Monday morning, after the Assoc…

When the day comes that testosterone replacement therapy is finally, mercifully banned in MMA, we may well look back on this week as a tipping point.

Much of the years-long argument on the subject suddenly seemed moot on Monday morning, after the Association of Ringside Physicians released a statement flatly condemning the controversial treatment and calling for its elimination in combat sports.

By afternoon, that opinion had received support from a surprising figure: UFC president Dana White.

In what amounted to perhaps his strongest call to date for increased government regulation in MMA, White told the Associated Press he was “thrilled” by the ARP’s call to ban TRT.

Even more shocking, White said he hopes the Nevada Athletic Commission won’t grant a therapeutic use exemption to top contender Vitor Belfort when he fights Chris Weidman for the middleweight title later this year.

“The doctors came out and said they want to ban it? Well, that’s the answer…,” White said. “It’s a problem solved.”

Strong stuff.

Now let’s hope the UFC president’s new hardline sticks.

After years of taking a more hands-off approach to drug testing issues, White put his disdain for TRT on record early last year when he told fans in London he thought it was “cheating” and was “absolutely 100 percent” against it, according to a report from MMA Opinion.

A month later, after Lyoto Machida defeated TRT user Dan Henderson at UFC 157, White underlined that belief in an interview with AXS TV’s Inside MMA.

“There were some situations in the UFC where it just got to the point where I said, you know what? This is bullshit,” White said. “I don’t like it anymore. At one point, I was like, hey, listen, it’s sports medicine, it’s legal…(but) it’s unfair. You’re stronger, faster, more explosive, all the same results you get from doing a performance enhancing drug, right? And the recovery ability. Like, after you train, your recovery is a lot faster. Especially if you’re jacked up on that stuff.”

Since then, however, it’s been a bit more difficult to pin him down on the issue. Though he’s said he doesn’t like TRT—and the UFC has suspended fighters like Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Ben Rothwell, after they were caught with elevated testosterone levels—he’s vehemently defended Belfort and other fighters he’s implied use it properly.

White’s denied that Belfort spending 2013 fighting exclusively in Brazil had anything to do with his hormone therapy and bristled at the notion the NAC might not license him to fight Weidman in Las Vegas.

What’s more, once Belfort’s push toward a second middleweight title shot gained momentum with highlight reel knockouts of Luke Rockhold and Henderson, White seemed downright giddy over his performances. He even went as far as to use Belfort as the yardstick by which other aging fighters should measure their career resurgences.

Monday was a departure from all of that. Not only was it White’s first call that state athletic commissions should ban TRT, but it marked his first admittance (at least in so many words) that there had been a rift between he and Belfort on the subject.

“He drives me crazy, and me and Vitor were not on good terms a few months ago,” White said to AP. “Just because this whole TRT thing, I think, is unfair, and I said we’re going to test the living (daylights) out of him (during training). And we have, and he has complied, and he has been within the limits he’s supposed to have.”

The million-dollar question, of course, is what happens from here.

Now that White and ARP have both come out against TRT, it’s getting more and more difficult to make a case for why the stuff should be legal in combat sports. If the UFC can no longer be counted among those who even tacitly defend hormone therapy usage, it’s starting to seem like the only people for it are the fighters who use it and the doctors who sell it to them.

Making that circle ever smaller is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t yet amount to any substantive action.

We’ve seen White take a stand against TRT in the past, but then downplay the issue when users like Belfort, Henderson and Chael Sonnen start to get hot. What will he do this time?

As the NAC searches for a new executive director in the wake of Keith Kizer’s resignation earlier this month, let’s hope White continues to add his voice to the anti-TRT chorus.

As the date of Belfort vs. Weidman draws nearer, here’s hoping he sticks to his guns and keeps saying Belfort shouldn’t be using testosterone.

And if the athletic commissions won’t act? Perhaps the UFC will.

At this point, the fight company’s hat is officially in the ring.

Let’s see if it stays there.

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