Last week many longtime MMA fans were disappointed to see that longtime former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva was facing some serious drug charges that could end his decorated career.
Reported to have failed a USADA drug test for synthetic testosterone and a banned diuretic prior to his scheduled UFC Shanghai headliner against Kelvin Gastelum last November, Silva and his team initially claimed a tainted supplement. But with that avenue not working all too well for Silva’s first failed drug test following his UFC 183 bout with Nick Diaz, his latest and more serious failure could spell the end of the legendary ‘Spider.’
His status as a legend could understandably be brought into question, too, and the man who took Silva’s title at UFC 162 believes it has. Speaking up during a recent interview with MMA Fighting, former UFC champion Chris Weidman offered his opinion that Silva had already tarnished his historic legacy:
“Yeah, it definitely tarnishes his legacy. You fail a drug test, your whole career is in question, in my opinion. And he failed them now twice. So definitely it tarnishes his legacy. I don’t know what else to say about that. It’s just another one bites the dust. It’s one after another. Literally almost every guy I ever fought at this point has failed a drug test.”
And to him, it wasn’t all that surprising, as Silva is getting older and steroids are supposedly easier to get in Brazil, according to Weidman.
With past bouts against Brazilian legends Silva, Lyoto Machida, and Vitor Belfort in addition to Yoel Romero and Tom Lawlor, the former champ admitted that almost all of his past opponents had failed drug tests:
“I’m not really that surprised,” Weidman said. “After the first one and now this one. He’s older now. I don’t know. I’m not super surprised. In Brazil, I know the steroids are very easy to get. A lot of guys were probably on them a long time. I’m not super surprised. The reality is that it definitely tarnishes his legacy.
“All these guys are on it. Even Lyoto Machida failed a drug test. I didn’t think he was that guy. All the guys — Yoel Romero, Vitor Belfort. Go on Sherdog and look at my record. Literally almost every single guy I ever fought has failed a drug test.”
Snapping a three-fight slid in his last bout against Gastelum last July, Weidman is now recovering from yet another surgery, this time on his thumb, and expects to be returning to the cage sometime in the early summer.
As for Silva, well, the drug tests that his greatest rival said have tainted his legacy may also put an end to it.
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