The ongoing saga between the Nevada Athletic Commission and Wanderlei Silva is a long way from over. This time the Nevada Attorney General wants to trump Silva’s trump card, and has asked the NAC to deny the last-minute motion Silva filed last week to dismiss disciplinary action for evading a random drug test in May.
Back in June, Silva appeared before the NAC for evading a random drug test ahead of his UFC 175 fight with Chael Sonnen. He admitted at the time to running away from the test, and confessed to taking anti-inflammatories and a diuretic, the latter which appears on the banned substance list for licensed fighters in Nevada. He was removed from the fight with Sonnen and replaced with Vitor Belfort (before Sonnen was removed for failing a pair of random drug tests himself).
Silva was to have appeared at his disciplinary hearing on Aug. 21, but instead his camp filed a last-minute motion to dismiss him of disciplinary action. Silva’s defense for filing: That the NAC didn’t have jurisdiction over him as a non-licensed fighter in Nevada. The random drug test was presented to him before he applied for a license, therefore absolving him of the responsibility to test.
UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani received a copy of the Nevada Attorney General’s response to the motion, which has been filed to deny the motion and proceed with the hearing. In the opposition to respondent’s motion to dismiss, the Attorney General claims that Silva was well aware he was scheduled to fight at UFC 175 on July 5 when he was approached for testing on May 24. Besides that, Silva claimed he was using a diuretic, which is banned.
Helwani reported that the Nevada Attorney General claims in its opposition that licensure is not a prerequisite to discipline; that Nevada has the right to punish a person, or an unarmed combatant who is getting ready to compete in the state, even if they aren’t yet licensed.They also say that Silva is asking the commission to adopt an unreasonable interpretation of their regulations so that he can “cheat without repercussions.”
Helwani said on the show that he asked Chairman Francisco Aguilar whether it was a mistake to test Silva before he was licensed, and that Aguilar said no, that it was a learning process for them — a relatively new commission — and they are just interested in the long-term good of the sport. They Attorney General is hoping to bring Silva’s disciplinary case up at next month’s hearing.
The 38-year old Silva last fought in March 2013 against Brian Stann in Japan. He won the fight via knockout in the second round. Before then he’d lost seven of his last ten bouts, going back to his days in PRIDE FC.