Exactly three months ago, the Nevada Athletic Commission granted Vitor Belfort a license to fight in the state based on three conditions: he could not compete prior to December, his next fight had to be in Nevada, and he would cooperate when approached for random blood and urine testing no matter where he is.
“I’ll give you my definition of reasonable testing going forward from this commissioner’s perspective,” NAC commissioner Anthony Marnell told Belfort at the hearing, “we’re going to drug test you to the day you retire. That’s my definition of reasonable. We, in my opinion, should be in and around your career until the day you call it quits.”
Moments later, the UFC officially announced Belfort vs. Chris Weidman for the UFC middleweight title on Dec. 6 in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for all parties involved, that fight had to be postponed on Sept. 22 due to a Weidman hand injury.
So, how many times has Belfort been tested since July 23? The answer is none.
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.
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.
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.
“Anytime,” the rep said. “We want to do it anytime.”