(“You say Vitor Belfort got accepted at Stanford? GET ME YALE ON THE LINE, ASAP.”)
It doesn’t really matter all that much, because Wanderlei Silva has spent the past three years in exile from the sport (and, oh yeah, retired from it over 2 years ago), but the former Pride and UFC star’s long legal battle with the Nevada State Athletic Commission has finally come to an end. His sentence? THREE MORE YEARS OF IRRELEVANCY.
Sort of.
Details after the jump.
Yes, after initially being handed a lifetime ban by the commission for skipping out on a drug test prior to his UFC 175 bout with Chael Sonnen — a ruling that was later overturned by a Nevada District Court judge — Silva appeared before the NSAC earlier today to challenge the suspension. According to those present, Silva’s attorney, Saul Goodman, used the opportunity to lay into NSAC head Bob Bennett with a line of questioning that was deemed ”insulting” by the board. After some brief debate, Silva was hit with a three year suspension retroactive to May of 2014, meaning he will be free to compete in May of 2017. The $70,000 fine he received was also rescinded due to the fact that oh who gives a f*ck.
One can only imagine the pro wrestling-style shoot promo that awaits us any minute now.
Speaking of drug test-related suspensions, you might recall that Gleison Tibau was hit a USADA notice of his own back in December, after flunking an out-of-competition drug test on the heels of his submission win over Abel Trujillo at Fight Night 77 (I know, contain your surprise). At first, it looked like the long-standing member of the lightweight division would be appealing, but just as quickly, Tibau pulled a rare move in MMA these days and publicly apologized for failing the test. Even crazier, he honest-to-God admitted to using EPO and subsequently ended his appeal, telling MMAFighting:
It’s going to be it. They asked me if I wanted to appeal, but it was too tiresome. Three months of meetings at the court, that’s tiring. I don’t want to appeal anymore. I’m done. I expected it to be easier, but that demands a lot from you mentally, physically and financially. If I wanted to continue the appeal, I would have to pay all the court costs from now on, I would have to pay my lawyer, and the suspension would probably go down only three or six months, I don’t know, so I decided not to appeal.
As such, Tibau will now be suspended from the sport for the minimum two years, as per the new UFC/USADA guidelines. For what it’s worth, he seems generally remorseful for what he’s done.
“I’m upset,” continued Tibau. “I have to apologize to my fans because it was a medical mistake. We used a substance we thought wouldn’t be anything, we used it out of competition. I have my conscience clear that I took it without imagining I was doing something wrong. It’s going to be hard for me, but I will pay the price for my mistake.”
Well at least his conscience is clear. I don’t know if I’d be able to live with the idea of a cheater who nearly strangled his last opponent to death having a case of the sads.
The post Not That You Care, But Wanderlei Silva Was Just Hit With a Three Year Suspension appeared first on Cagepotato.