Author: Chad Dundas

Nevada Commission Moves to Improve Judging, Should Look at TRT Next

Chances are that the Nevada State Athletic Commission was planning its upcoming regulatory “workshop” long before UFC 167.
Still, when the NSAC announced this week it will hold an event on Dec. 2 to “solicit comments from interested p…

Chances are that the Nevada State Athletic Commission was planning its upcoming regulatory “workshop” long before UFC 167.

Still, when the NSAC announced this week it will hold an event on Dec. 2 to “solicit comments from interested persons” on any “proposed regulation” regarding combat sports, the timing seemed…awkward.

It had been less than 48 hours since UFC president Dana White went scorched earth on the commission following Georges St-Pierre’s controversial decision win over Johny Hendricks.

For at least a couple of weeks, things had seemed strained between the nation’s largest MMA company and the most powerful state athletic commission, and the judges’ verdict that ended UFC 167 only turned up the volume.

“I think the Nevada State Athletic Commission is atrocious,” White said, to open the post-fight news conference. “I think the governor needs to step in immediately before these guys destroy this sport like they did boxing…It’s absolutely, 100 percent incompetence, and it needs to stop.”

The proximity of White’s latest rant to the announcement of the NSAC’s workshop naturally links the two in the mind of the public. It is now largely assumed if the commission is going to entertain “interested persons” in a discussion of the rules, the way that MMA fights are scored will be a hot topic of conversation.

Perhaps in response to criticisms by UFC brass, the commission will also move to increase the number of judges and referees in its official pool, according to a Wednesday article from MMAJunkie.com. NSAC chairman Francisco Aguilar told the website that the commission will look into ramping up training for ringside officials.

All of that is probably a good idea, as anything to correct the sport’s well-documented penchant for inept judging would be welcome indeed.

But as long as the commission is sponsoring an open forum on purposed regulation, why stop there? The NSAC should take the opportunity to also remedy another of MMA’s biggest problems—testosterone replacement therapy.

Testosterone use has been impossible to ignore in recent months, as Vitor Belfort continues his supercharged march toward the middleweight title. The issue of whether he would be granted a therapeutic use exemption for a potential upcoming title fight in Nevada recently appeared to put White at odds with the commission.

NSAC director Keith Kizer said earlier this month that—owing to a positive drug test in the state in 2006—Belfort would have to appear before the full commission if he wanted to apply to use TRT. At that time, the five-member panel could rule on his request.

After Belfort’s win over Dan Henderson in Brazil earlier this month, White called notions that Belfort couldn’t fight in the UFC’s home state “ridiculous” and added, “There’s no reason Vitor Belfort shouldn’t be able to fight in Nevada, no matter what Keith Kizer says,” per MMA Fighting.

The entire saga has MMA fans confused about whether they should cheer Belfort’s recent run or call shenanigans on him as a user of performance-enhancing drugs. Even if the NSAC rubber stamps his TRT use in the state next year, critics likely still won’t be satisfied.

For a lot of people, the idea that a 200-pound professional athlete with a body like an action figure and the striking prowess of a heavyweight needs extra testosterone is just too much to swallow.

It might help to clear things up if the NSAC were to revisit the issue and take steps to tighten regulations on TRT.

Or ban it entirely.

White noted during the UFC 167 news conference that the NSAC “used to be the best in the world,” and it is still unanimously regarded as the most influential athletic commission in the nation. What better way to re-stake its claim as a leader in the industry than to take a firm, enlightened stance on TRT?

If Nevada took testosterone exemptions off the table, other state commissions might follow its example. Then we’d all be one step closer to laughing about the days when fighters used to get a doctor’s note that allowed them to legally mainline an anabolic steroid.

In the wake of the announcement of increased training for judges and the NSAC’s workshop, White seemed to temper his criticisms a bit.

“It’s not the commissioners who I have a problem with, I have great respect for the commissioners,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I honestly believe change is going to happen, that the athletic commissioners in Nevada will fix the problem.”

Moving to restrict or eliminate testosterone use could have a similar conciliatory effect with fans. Now we just need somebody to show up at the workshop and convince the NSAC that it’s the right move.

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Georges St-Pierre’s UFC 167 Breakdown Highlights Pressures of Being Best

Leading up to UFC 167, there was a quote floating around from UFC president Dana White lauding the perseverance and iron will of his longtime welterweight champion.
“When you’re as rich as Georges St-Pierre is,” White said, “to …

Leading up to UFC 167, there was a quote floating around from UFC president Dana White lauding the perseverance and iron will of his longtime welterweight champion.

“When you’re as rich as Georges St-Pierre is,” White said, “to stay mentally tough and to keep having the drive and the passion to win that he does, that’s what separates him from all the rest.”

A version of the quote appeared during the UFC’s series of Primetime specials for St-Pierre’s fight against Johny Hendricks and later in a Forbes.com story where an executive from Under Armour also called GSP “the Michael Jordan of MMA.”

So, you know, no pressure.

Viewed with the benefit of hindsight—now that we’ve witnessed St-Pierre’s grueling bout with Hendricks, its controversial outcome and the champion’s ensuing public breakdown—it’s clear White’s sentiments, while genuine, belied the truth.

Today we must assume St-Pierre could manage life as the greatest 170-pounder on the planet only with considerable strain. Really, the only reason that surprises anyone is because he made it look so easy for so long.

“I’m going crazy,” St-Pierre confessed Saturday night as he sat battered and broken—but weirdly victorious—during the event’s post-fight news conference. “I have some issues. I need to relax. I need to get out for a while.”

Later he added, “I left my soul in the Octagon.”

The announcement of GSP’s faux-retirement rankled White and inflamed the Internet, though the sudden revelation that he needs a break was more or less consistent with what we’ve heard from other longstanding UFC champs.

At least in the immediate aftermath of his UFC 162 loss to Chris Weidman, Anderson Silva appeared genuinely glad to be done with it all. Silva, 38, had been champion for a bit more than six-and-a-half years, is regarded as the greatest MMA fighter ever and had made the shortest possible work of much of his competition.

Yet after Weidman knocked him out one minute, 18 seconds into the second round back in July, Silva’s initial reaction was that he absolutely did not want the chance to get his belt back.

“Chris is the champion now…,” he told Joe Rogan in the cage. “That’s it, I finished my work. I (won’t) fight more for the belt. I’ll change my life now, because I’ve been working hard for a long time. I’ve had the belt for a long time. I’m tired. I’ll relax now.”

Silva’s feelings only added to what we’d already heard from Matt Hughes, who looked legitimately relieved when BJ Penn finally ended his dominant run as 170-pound champion at UFC 46. Hughes said he felt like a weight had been lifted and implied that he would enjoy seeing someone else take the heat for a little while.

He gave the impression there was real catharsis for him in dropping the title, and he added an unmistakable note of ironic glee directed at Penn.

Yeah, good luck with that, he appeared to say.

During their time as champions, Hughes, Silva and St. Pierre each routinely faced forms of stress and obstacles “normal” people likely can’t fathom. It stands to reason that in an occupation as unspeakably difficult and taxing as MMA, the guy at the top naturally takes the worst of it.

That’s what they signed up for and, yeah, they must be able to handle that stress better than almost anyone on the planet. Still though, for a sport that analyzes and debates most of its details to death, it’s weird how seldom we acknowledge how much we ask of these men. It’s odd how little we’re forced to confront the impossibility of the expectations we set for them and how—just maybe—they can tear a guy apart.

Our one reminder is that when it’s over, the men who’ve been kings for the longest rarely seem to want the throne back. At least not right away.

For St-Pierre—who has done it longer, arguably better and against stiffer competition than anyone—his departure might have been easier if he’d lost to Hendricks Saturday. At least then we wouldn’t be crushing him over a decision he couldn’t control and goading him into a rematch he doesn’t really want.

He’s said his desire to “go away for a while” is compounded by as-yet unspecified personal reasons, but—whatever they are—they’ve certainly been exacerbated by the fact he’s lived the last seven years of his life while tiptoeing across the razor blade of high-level MMA competition.

Owing to his widely maligned but undeniably effective fighting style, he’s spent more time in the Octagon than any other man in history. He’s had high-intensity blood feuds with Penn and Nick Diaz but also fought his own teammate in Carlos Condit.

Since avenging his only two career losses (to Hughes at UFC 50 and Matt Serra at UFC 69), he’s greeted and summarily defeated a constant revolving door of challengers who embodied the very best the UFC could bring him. In 2011-12, he took time off to rehab a significant knee injury (so, in other words, not time off at all) but otherwise has been the fight promotion’s best, most dependable soldier.

When you think about all St-Pierre did, how long he did it and the pressure he did it under, words like remarkable and extraordinary fall flat.

When you consider that he was so good that we complained about it, dismissed it as boring and that his promoter’s first response upon learning that he was hurting (really hurting) was to rip him in public, well, we clearly don’t deserve him, anyway.

If he decides to walk away, it’d be hard to blame him.

Of course, we know what happened with Silva and Hughes. Neither stayed content for long.

After losing his belt to Penn, Hughes fought 15 more times in the UFC, trudging on until back-to-back KO losses in 2010-11 forced him into retirement.

Silva will rematch with Weidman next month.

St-Pierre’s future is somewhat less certain, though White now assures us the rematch with Hendricks is also “on track.”

For his part, after going straight from the hospital to the news conference to fulfill his UFC 167 duties, some of the first words out of St-Pierre’s mouth were also a reassurance.

“I would never turn my back to the UFC,” he said, his face a jigsaw puzzle of bruises, a fat caterpillar of stitches under his right eye. “Ever. Ever.”

You want mental toughness? Eat your heart out, kids. Now, let’s hope the MMA industry is tough enough to honor St-Pierre’s final decision.

Whatever it may be.

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UFC 167: Are We Witnessing the Last Days of the Georges St-Pierre Era?

Johny Hendricks comes into Saturday night’s 170-pound title fight as more than a 2-to-1 underdog to Georges St-Pierre.
Considering the competition, that’s not too shabby.
Those relatively competitive odds seem to confirm (or at least perpet…

Johny Hendricks comes into Saturday night’s 170-pound title fight as more than a 2-to-1 underdog to Georges St-Pierre.

Considering the competition, that’s not too shabby.

Those relatively competitive odds seem to confirm (or at least perpetuate) the overwhelming public sentiment leading up to UFC 167—that Hendricks will be the most difficult test yet for the longtime champion and consensus GOAT welterweight.

Maybe we’re not quite expecting St-Pierre’s near six-year title reign to end this weekend, but at the very least, we have to keep reminding ourselves not to be surprised if it does.

Certainly Hendricks has been assigned more gravitas than we’ve granted nearly any previous GSP opponent. At this point, we’ve heard all about his crushing power, his wrestling pedigree and his aw-shucks refusal to shrink from the moment. We’ve watched three full episodes of Zuffa-produced UFC Primetime hype, the point of which seemed to be that Hendricks was born to be a champion.

Yet, much of the intrigue regarding this fight has nothing to do with him. Rather, it continues to swirl around the current titlist, a man we seldom describe with words like intriguing.

Reports regarding St-Pierre’s future have been all over the map during the past few weeks. At various times, his handlers have hinted at his retirement, backtracked from it and then brought it up again just in time for the UFC 167 media blitz.

St-Pierre mentor Kristof Midoux recently told French-Canadian news outlet La Presse he thinks the fighter should retire in the cage if he defeats Hendricks, as a way of “passing the torch” to teammate Rory MacDonald. St-Pierre and MacDonald have said again and again that they won’t fight each other, so for the 24-year-old up-and-comer to get his shot, St-Pierre would either have to move on or lose the belt.

GSP has tried to laugh off suggestions that the Hendricks bout will be his swan song while simultaneously dropping hints that he has “big plans” he can’t reveal quite yet.

“Right now I feel very happy with what I do,” he told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani this week. “I feel very happy, very motivated and I’m planning my next fight, not my retirement.”

He claims he’s “obsessed” with beating the former Oklahoma State wrestler, though those declarations are fairly common from the champion when he’s in his intense, pre-fight mode. By the same token, during the run-up to this bout, he’s talked openly about a future after fighting—settling down, getting married and having enough children to field a football team, he says.

For his part, UFC president Dana White said he hadn’t heard anything at all about GSP possibly hanging up his gloves until Helwani brought it up this week. During their interview, White noted that “passing the torch” to MacDonald would be an awfully strange thing for GSP to do.

He’s right about that. Regardless of how much confidence their camps may have in both fighters, there are way too many moving parts in this scenario—in any fight-related scenario, really—to justify St-Pierre stepping aside for MacDonald.

Just for starters, the kid has to beat Robbie Lawler this weekend, and St-Pierre has to beat Hendricks. Even then, it wouldn’t hurt for MacDonald to pick up a couple of more wins over Top 10 competition before we go ahead and anoint him the world’s next great 170-pounder.

Right now he’s got exactly one—over Jake Ellenberger a little less than four months ago.

St-Pierre and MacDonald may be best buds, but GSP is likely far too smart to think “stepping aside” makes any kind of sense.

So if not retirement, what then are these grand plans that the typically vanilla St-Pierre has been smirking about this week?

For years, there has been talk that he might chase a superfight at middleweight, though the timing seems off for that move, too. With Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman still more than a month out from settling their business and White saying during Thursday’s news conference that all superfight plans were dead, it’d be weird for St-Pierre to suddenly shove off for 185 pounds.

And again, he’d absolutely have to beat Hendricks to make that plausible.

A more realistic course of action could be cutting to lightweight, which he said on Thursday would be difficult but not impossible. It’s the sort of thing that could work whether he wins, loses or draws against Hendricks. Dropping down might be better for his physical frame than fighting at middleweight, and the move would likewise clear MacDonald’s path.

Then again, it would also be kind of a letdown. St-Pierre has been so dominant at welterweight that dropping to 155 pounds would just be him moving his fish-shooting business to a much smaller barrel. There’s also the curious case of champion Anthony Pettis, who may be out up to eight months after tearing his posterior cruciate ligament in training.

If GSP moves to lightweight, he would either have to fight someone who is not the champ or be in for a long wait.

Whatever the case, St-Pierre won’t let us in on the secret until after he fights Hendricks this weekend. Until then, we’ll all just have to wait to see if the St-Pierre Era comes to a close, or if it enters an unexpected new chapter.

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UFC 20th Anniversary: Remembering MMA’s Bad Old Days

When we were in high school, my friend Thatcher’s parents had a Bowflex in their living room.
Of course they did. It was the ’90s.
Thatcher’s house was the first place I ever saw the UFC. I’m pretty sure he and I cut class …

When we were in high school, my friend Thatcher’s parents had a Bowflex in their living room.

Of course they did. It was the ’90s.

Thatcher’s house was the first place I ever saw the UFC. I’m pretty sure he and I cut class one afternoon during our sophomore year to sneak over there and watch it on VHS while his parents were at work. His dad had taped it off pay-per-view that weekend and when Thatcher said it was amazing, that I had to see it, I probably said something like, “Yeah, cool, whatever.”

Boom. The rest of my life. Right there.

Considering the formative role it played with me, you’d think I would remember every detail of my first encounter with MMA, but the truth is, I don’t. I don’t remember much at all about what we watched that day, except this one fleeting memory of a guy in white pajamas arm-barring a guy in Hammer pants.

That’s it. No context, nothing else. Just a disembodied, flickering image that railroads through my mind without preamble or explanation. As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of UFC 1 on Tuesday, you ask me about my earliest UFC memory? That’s all I got.

I do remember my reaction to what I saw, which history now tells me was pretty universal to kids about my age. I remember being amazed that the little dude in the gi was cleaning house by sucking people onto the ground and making them quit with strangleholds and joint locks.

There was that ah-ha moment where it dawned on you: The best style of karate wasn’t karate at all. It was jiu-jitsu. It seemed so simple once the little dude showed you how.

The little dude, of course, was Royce Gracie, and you could make the case those early tournaments were basically set up for him to win. The fight director was his uncle, and while the bouts weren’t fixed, it’s not a huge leap to assume the Gracies started by inviting a bunch of guys they thought Royce could beat. The UFC, such as it was, was really sort of a live action infomercial for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and, man, it worked.

Even if I knew at the time that Gracie wasn’t the underdog in those early fights, that he was actually the overwhelming, prohibitive favorite, I probably wouldn’t have cared. We were willing to overlook a lot in those days: the mismatches, the terrible broadcasts, the scorn of our friends, family and of society.

Because, brother, that first handful of events, they were bad.

Viewed with the benefit of 20 years worth of hindsight, everything about the first days of the UFC seems seedy and corny and hilarious. The announcers were awful, arguably less prepared than any of the shockingly ill-prepared fighters, and there was so much general confusion mixed in with the brutality, you couldn’t help but laugh at a lot of it.

The pure sport aspect was almost nonexistent, and even as a spectacle meant to terrify and titillate the public, they don’t really stand the test of time. It’s weird now to think that those early fight cards could’ve gotten their hooks into me, but I guess they did.

My personal evolution as a fan followed a fairly routine trajectory for spectators during MMA’s awkward adolescent years. We raided the local video stores for all the UFC events we could lay our hands on, watching a lot of them out of order because that’s how they came to us. Later we bought DVD collections out of the bargain bins—King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge shows by the dozen—and eventually chased down early Pride cards and even some RINGS events.

At some point, somebody said we should go to Vegas for a show and we did. Then we went to another and another, and pretty soon they started to run together in my mind.

The next thing I knew I was a superfan, and 20 years later I realize I owe all of it to that house with the Bowflex in the living room, and that one shaky memory of the guy in pajamas curling up underneath the guy in Hammer pants, making him tap.

Once I had the benefit of the Internet on my side, I went back to research that moment, with the intention of filling in the gaps in my memory. As it turned out, I wasn’t missing much.

I discovered the first UFC fight I remember watching was Royce Gracie vs. Jason DeLucia in the quaterfinals of UFC 2—not UFC 1. It was just Gracie’s fifth official MMA fight and DeLucia’s third, though the two of them had faced off before as part of the now-infamous, underground Gracie challenge series you can still dredge up on YouTube.

Neither fight went so hot for DeLucia.

Their UFC bout lasted one minute and seven seconds, but during that time there are a lot of what you might call “early UFC” moments. For example, ring announcer Rich “Go-Go” Goins introduces Gracie as the “defending Ultimate Fighting Champion…champion.”

The broadcast team knows what’s up, they are completely in the bag for Gracie. They don’t even consider the notion that DeLucia might win, instead choosing to spend their time talking about what Royce is doing, why Royce is, doing it and what Royce is going to do next. When it’s over, as they’re all marveling over Gracie’s skills, commentator Jim Brown yells—in the most Jim Brown way possible—“You can’t wrestle with a snake!”

How on earth do I not remember that?

Oh, the bad old days. Twenty years later, we’ve come so far, but I still have no idea what Jim Brown was talking about.

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UFC Has Options Besides Vitor Belfort in Suddenly Deep Middleweight Division

As we found out all over again early this week, things in MMA often turn on a dime. Around here, favor can be fickle, and at times it seems nothing is quite as fleeting as the promise of what’s next.
Just ask Josh Thomson, who on Monday saw his o…

As we found out all over again early this week, things in MMA often turn on a dime. Around here, favor can be fickle, and at times it seems nothing is quite as fleeting as the promise of what’s next.

Just ask Josh Thomson, who on Monday saw his opportunity at the UFC lightweight title evaporate due to a knee injury suffered by champion Anthony Pettis.

Or ask T.J. Grant, who, after six months of waiting for the stars to align in the form of his own chance at the 155-pound strap, might suddenly be back in the driver’s seat because of that same injury.

For that matter, ask Dan Henderson, whose 77-second destruction at the hands of Vitor Belfort on Saturday has him staring up from the pit of three straight losses. Just a couple years back, Hendo was being bandied about as a top pound-for-pound fighter and as recently as 2012 saw his own promised shot at the UFC title scuttled by injury.

The big lesson here? Nothing in this sport is certain, and that’s why we still can’t consider Vitor Belfort’s apparent status as No. 1 middleweight contender a done deal quite yet.

UFC President Dana White said over the weekend that it would take “something crazy” to keep Belfort away from his second crack at the 185-pound title, but if we know anything for sure about this industry, it’s that crazy can and often does happen.

Entire worlds could collapse and dreams disintegrate between now and Dec. 28, when Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman rematch for the middleweight championship. Until they do, it’s impossible to even begin to chart a course for the future of this division.

For now, Belfort appears the odds-on favorite to meet the winner, but in the event that injury or unforeseen calamity (or maybe just cooler heads) prevent “The Phenom” from cashing in his ticket, UFC matchmakers will have other options in a weight class that is suddenly as interesting and talent-rich as ever.

And while we’re on the topic, let’s just get it out in the open: No matter what happens, the company might be better off opting to go with a contender with a little less baggage than Belfort.

Indeed, if he’s truly the division’s top challenger, he’s also its most flawed. The slow burn of his 16-year career suddenly escalated into a wildfire during 2013, powered by a trio of consecutive head-kick knockouts. His ascendence simultaneously divided the MMA community, with one camp of observers taking issue with his controversial use of testosterone therapy while another falls all over itself trying to explain it away.

Just like baseball a decade ago, one half of this industry wants to put asterisks by Belfort’s most recent wins and the other half just wants to yell, “Steroids don’t help you hit home runs!”

Boosting the 36-year-old Brazilian into another title shot—or, knock on wood, having him as champion—could amount to a huge public relations nightmare for the UFC. Why take the risk, when there is no shortage of other middleweights who appear on the verge of title contention?

For starters, there is newly minted 185-pounder Lyoto Machida, who shares many of Belfort’s positive attributes and (so far) none of his negatives. Like Belfort, he is a former light heavyweight champion who can fight in multiple divisions. As recent opponent Mark Munoz can attest, Machida can also knock people out at middleweight.

In addition, we currently have no reason to believe “The Dragon” is doing anything to augment the amount of naturally occurring testosterone in his body. When you get paid to punch people in the face, that’s always a plus. If his upcoming bout against Gegard Mousasi ends positively for him, it would be pretty easy to justify Machida as No. 1 contender.

There is also Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, who has been one of the middleweight division’s most exciting new additions since coming over from the wreckage of Strikeforce earlier this year. His first two UFC fights both ended in first-round stoppages (one submission, one TKO) and he’s 9-1 in his last 10 appearances in the cage.

The one potential drawback to having either Souza or Machida as top contenders could be their mutual friendship with Silva and the fact they’re all already on record saying they won’t fight each other. On the other hand, as we speak, Silva isn’t the champion, and if “The Spider” defeats Weidman at UFC 168, the best course of action will likely be to complete a trilogy between the two men.

If Silva emerges from that as champion? Well, he can’t very well swear off fighting nearly half of the middleweight Top 5 forever, now can he?

Even in the “crazy” event that the company is forced to venture outside the A-list to find title contenders, it’s not as though the middleweight division would be devoid of viable options. None would be exactly perfect, but they also wouldn’t be completely nonsensical.

Francis Carmont has an 11-fight win streak, after all, with the last six coming in the UFC. His ground-based style hasn’t electrified the MMA world, but it’s hard to deny its effectiveness.

Michael Bisping will also soon be returning, and Tim Kennedy has recently vaulted himself into the top-tier. In addition to that, there is a healthy crop of B-level fighters like Alan Belcher, Costa Philippou, Tim Boetsch, Luke Rockhold, Lorenz Larkin, Munoz and Mousasi; any one of whom could be rehabilitated into a contender with another win or two (or three).

Granted, the 185-pound division still lags behind consistently stacked weight classes like lightweight and welterweight, but right now, it at least looks more intriguing than a few years ago—when it seemed like Silva had defeated everyone besides the 185-pound janitors at Zuffa, LLC headquarters.

If the UFC wants to roll the dice to offer a fighter as widely criticized as Belfort a title shot, then that quite literally is its business. But in the event “something crazy” like injury or—perhaps most defensible of all—good sense prevails, the middleweight division will survive.

And arguably emerge better off.

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UFC Fight Night 32: Is Belfort’s Resurgence Cause for Celebration or Concern?

Here’s a loaded statement for you: Vitor Belfort is back.
For a third consecutive fight, Belfort appeared to have recaptured the speed and power of his 19-year-old self on Saturday night, blitzing Dan Henderson with strikes en route to a first-ro…

Here’s a loaded statement for you: Vitor Belfort is back.

For a third consecutive fight, Belfort appeared to have recaptured the speed and power of his 19-year-old self on Saturday night, blitzing Dan Henderson with strikes en route to a first-round stoppage in the main event of UFC Fight Night 32.

In doing so, he became the first man in Henderson’s 40-fight career to finish the former Pride middleweight champion via KO. It was Belfort’s third straight win and his third consecutive head-kick knockout—each one seemingly more impressive than the last—and in the aftermath there has been a lot of talk about the “new Vitor.”

The weird thing about that is this new Vitor looks an awful lot like the old, old Vitor—the knockout artist who enthralled the MMA world for a short time during the late 1990s.

This weekend he made it look easy again, lifting an advancing Henderson off his feet with a left hook at one minute and two seconds into the first round of their fight in Goiania, Brazil. He followed with a barrage of punches on the ground that, in both sheer numbers and savagery, recalled “The Phenom’s” early days in the UFC. Somehow, Henderson battled to his feet, but in doing so he walked into the kick that put him down for good.

Under normal circumstances, Belfort’s recent career resurgence would be cause for celebration. Since 2006, he’s gone 10-2, with his only losses coming in title fights against Anderson Silva and Jon Jones. His short and sweet performance on Saturday netted him a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus and prompted UFC president Dana White to say that he can likely no longer be denied another shot at the middleweight title.

Unfortunately, due to his widely publicized association with testosterone replacement therapy, fans just can’t give him their unconditional love and support. The fighter and his promoters continue to assert that everything is on the up-and-up with his hormone replacement therapy—for which he has a legal therapeutic use exemption when he fights in Brazil—but at this point, you can’t blame observers if they don’t know what to believe.

Frankly, we’re not even sure if we should believe our eyes.

A 36-year-old veteran who suddenly looks like a teenager again? That’s going to raise some alarms. If it doesn’t at least make you curious, then you haven’t been paying attention to sports during the last, say, 20 years.

Certainly TRT is doing something for Belfort, or else he wouldn’t be using it. Exactly what or how much it’s enhancing his training, abilities and fight-night performances, we may never know. That alone is cause for concern, especially if he’s on the verge of another chance to become the standard bearer for the UFC middleweight division.

As long as he continues to use TRT, it will continue to be the defining topic of his career. Like all fighters on hormone therapy, he’ll be caught in a strange Catch-22 wherein he has to convince fans and media how badly he needs it while simultaneously denying that it actually helps him.

Fans will always have to wonder if he’s cheating, and that’s a shame, considering the unbelievable upswing he’s crafted for himself during 2013. It would be nice if we could just relax and enjoy it, but unfortunately we can’t.

Instead we have to worry about things like where he fights, how his previous drug use may or may not have contributed to his current “condition” and whether or not there is even such a thing as “low testosterone.”

Counting the Henderson fight, all three of Belfort’s recent knockouts have taken place in Brazil. The UFC contends this is because its TV broadcast partners in that country want him there for the ratings. Critics say it’s because Belfort wouldn’t get licensed to fight in Nevada due to a previous positive steroid test in 2006.

If he is indeed up next for a title shot and that fight somehow does not happen in Las Vegas, it’s going to give doubters even more reason to be suspicious.

In the end, though, most MMA fans don’t really care where Belfort fights. They just want to know he’s doing it clean.

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