UFC middleweight contenders Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold, as well as champion Chris Weidman, may not agree on much, but they found common ground on not being big Vitor Belfort fans.
At the UFC Fight Night 55 pre-fight press conference (NSFW language) in Sydney, Bisping, Rockhold and Weidman all took shots at The Phenom’s past usage of performance-enhancing drugs (h/t MMA Fighting).
“But yes, listen, Vitor was juiced to the gills for many years, and now, he’s not,” Bisping said when asked about who would win when Weidman and Belfort square off at UFC 184. “Now, Chris is going to win that fight, first and foremost. [Weidman‘s] at an advantage…because [Belfort‘s] no longer juiced to the gills.”
“Vitor’s a joke to me,” Rockhold said. “We’ll see what comes out. I’m very interested…to see what happens in his drug test he took the other day. We’ll see if the fight even takes place.”
Weidman also expressed concern about Belfort‘s recent Nevada State Athletic Commission-administered random drug test (per Yahoo Sports).
“Yeah, I’m worried about that,” Weidman admitted. “You want him to get drug-tested until he actually gets drug-tested.”
Belfort was originally slated to face Weidman at UFC 173 in May but withdrew from the bout shortly after the NSAC banned testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), per Fox Sports.
The Brazilian slugger’s showdown with “The All-American” will be the first time he competes in the United States since August 2011, compiling a 4-1 record in Canada and Brazil while using TRT.
Back in February, Belfort revealed he had failed a random drug test for elevated levels of testosterone but was still later granted a conditional license to fight Weidman by the NSAC since he was not licensed at the time of the test failure, per MMA Fighting.
Additionally, Belfort failed a drug test for the anabolic steroid 4-hydroxytestosterone back in October 2006 after a decision loss to Dan Henderson, per MMA Weekly.
After a great 2013 scoring headkick knockouts over Bisping, Rockhold and Henderson, Belfort did not manage to get inside the Octagon in 2014.
Assuming he keeps his pre-fight drug screenings clean, Belfort meets Weidman on UFC 184 on February 28, serving as the pay-per-view show’s main event.
John Heinis is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
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