(“Hey bro, the supplement ladder is too high.” via Belfort’s instagram.)
Vitor Belfort is getting frustrated, y’all, and it’s easy to see why. “The Phenom’s” middleweight title shot against Chris Weidman has been delayed a half dozen times already, and was most recently pushed back to May after the champ once again went down with an injury. With each delay, the 37-year old finds himself drawing closer and closer to TRT-withdrawal-induced mortality, and to top it all off, he’s being unfairly drug-tested up the whazoo.
What’s that, you’ve taken some issue with our use of the term “unfairly”? Well take it up with Belfort, who despite passing his most recent random test, is still inexplicably being tested at every turn leading up to his UFC 187 title fight with Weidman. As he told the Brazilian media (as translated by MMAFighting):
In 2013, I was the only one (tested randomly). I was tested seven times for my fight with Weidman. Seven times. Did they test my opponent seven times?
The funny thing is that everybody is clean, nobody do anything wrong. But when they started testing everybody, how many got caught? Forty percent? That shows that for the system to work, everybody has to be tested equally. If they come test me for my fight with Weidman, they have to go test Weidman as well on the same date, same time. That’s an equal system. It has to be fair. It’s not fair that they test me seven times and only test him once.
Now, one one hand, Belfort is 100% correct here. Anderson Silva’s positive test has more or less shown us that *every* fighter on the UFC’s roster needs to be tested on a near-constant basis if the promotion ever hopes to clean up its PED epidemic. Random testing should be equal across the board regardless of a certain fighter’s past, especially in the case of a title fight. And to be fair to him, The Nevada State Athletic Commission hasn’t exactly been consistent in making good on their promise to test him “until the day he retires” until recently.
On the other hand, Belfort’s refusal to acknowledge that his own choices in the past *might* be playing a role in all this is just…classic him. Here’s a guy who has not only been busted for PEDs before, but has violated the limits of the sport’s TRT policies back when that sh*t was legal. Weidman, on the other hand, has never tested positive for anything other than excess gabagool in his lifetime. Should both fighters be tested on an equal basis in the months leading up to their fight? Sure. But to act as if the scales are being inexplicably and unfairly weighed against Belfort is an even more laughable statement.
All that being said, can you imagine how pissed Belfort will be when Weidman blows out his knee in April?