(Well, the visual evidence is definitely on Belfort’s side.)
Back in July, UFC middleweight Vitor Belfort went before the Nevada State Athletic Commission to answer for his failed drug test for elevated testosterone in February. It went pretty well, which is completely unsurprising since a big-money fight against Chris Weidman hung in the balance. Belfort was given a conditional license, and his title challenge against Weidman was immediately booked for December 6th in Las Vegas.
But NSAC commissioner Anthony Marnell left Belfort with this dire warning: “[W]e’re going to drug test you to the day you retire…We, in my opinion, should be in and around your career until the day you call it quits.”
Hell yeah! Nevada is gonna be up in them guts, son! [Ed. note: Gross.]
Except, no, not really. The truth is, Belfort hasn’t been drug-tested at all (!) since July 23rd, and the NSAC has no intention of testing him before his fight against Weidman, since that fight will now likely take place in California in late February at UFC 184. MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani breaks it:
On Wednesday, MMAFighting.com spoke to NAC executive director Bob Bennett, who said he currently has no plans in place to randomly test Belfort because the UFC recently informed the commission that the Weidman vs. Belfort fight would probably take place in California next year. (Note: the UFC has yet to publicly announce the official date and location of the title fight, however, UFC president Dana White recently said it would happen in February.) Bennett also said the commission had yet to test Belfort, despite the fact that the title fight was official for two months before Weidman had to pull out. Weidman confirmed he had not been tested, as well.
Bennett was confident that California State Athletic Commission executive officer Andy Foster “will spearhead” the Belfort testing, if the fight does in fact end up in California.
Foster then told MMAFighting.com that the UFC informally informed him of their current plan to hold the fight at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, however, they have yet to officially make that request…
A representative from Belfort’s management team, OTB Fight, confirmed that the NAC had yet to test Belfort, however, they said Belfort has provided them all of his addresses (home, office, gym), as well as kept them in the loop whenever he traveled so that he could easily be reached. Belfort has also been administering his own drug tests as of late.
So, to summarize: The Nevada commission left Belfort unsupervised for three full months after his re-licensing hearing, and is now washing its hands of the entire matter because California will probably deal with it. Nevada’s idea of getting tough is doing literally nothing. Chris Weidman is as shocked as we are.
Luckily, California will indeed take on the responsibility that the NSAC has shirked. From the MMAFighting report:
[Andy] Foster, who said in August that the CSAC plans on tripling its drug testing budget next year, told MMAFighting.com that while he has yet to decide how many times he will randomly test Belfort because the fight date isn’t locked in yet, he certainly planned on doing so.
“He’s not going to get a free pass,” Foster said. “He will have blood and urine randomly tested.
“I would be shocked and amazed if he cheated.”
Foster said his tentative plan is to test Belfort three-to-five times randomly before the fight, as well as the night of the event. He also plans on making Belfort pay for all drug testing costs “as a condition of licensure.” According to Foster, Belfort will also most likely have to submit a clean test with his license application whenever that comes time.
When reached by MMAFighting.com on Wednesday, Foster said he had yet to decide how many times he will randomly test Weidman before the fight. He wasn’t quite sure if testing Weidman, who has never failed a drug test before, as many times as Belfort was warranted. Weidman told MMAFighting.com that he was open to being randomly drug tested as many times as the commission wanted.
Well, at least it’s in the hands of professionals now. The last commission you’d want handling Vitor Belfort’s drug testing is the one that would hire Chael Sonnen as an expert.