Today, Potato Nation, vindication is spelled S-T-O-C-K-T-O-N M-O-T-H-A-F-U-C-K-A-S.
Well, if not “vindication,” than at least something close to it. That’s because earlier today, Nick Diaz and the Nevada State Athletic Commission were able to reach a settlement regarding the absolutely bogus suspension he received after testing positive for marijuana metabolites back at UFC 183.
Today, Potato Nation, vindication is spelled S-T-O-C-K-T-O-N M-O-T-H-A-F-U-C-K-A-S.
Well, if not “vindication,” than at least something close to it. That’s because earlier today, Nick Diaz and the Nevada State Athletic Commission were able to reach a settlement regarding the absolutely bogus suspension he received after testing positive for marijuana metabolites back at UFC 183.
Details after the jump.
You see, the NSAC, for the bumbling, stubling, incompetente arsholes they are, found themselves in even more hot water than usual after slamming Diaz with an unprecedented five year ban in September, by which I mean that they received a string of alleged death threats ordering them to reduce Diaz’s suspension. There was also an online, less violent White House petition, but wgaf about that.
So with this unforeseen motivation to reconsider suddenly knocking at their doors, the NSAC responded by holding a quick and painless hearing this afternoon to renegotiate the terms of Diaz’s case. The result: Diaz’s suspension was reduced from five years to 18 months (retroactive to UFC 183) and his fine from $165,000 to $100,000.
While the settlement itself was not released to the public, we managed to get ourselves a copy of it thanks to Jeremy Botter.
Diaz’s new deal does not come without a couple stipulations, mind you. Mainly, that Diaz will have to provide 3 urine samples in the month leading to his next fight in Nevada. Why the UFC would be stupid enough to book Diaz another fight in Las Vegas is beyond me, but there you go.
So yeah, it’s not quite justice, but in any case, the reduced suspension now means that Diaz will be eligible to compete on August 1st. Following the suspension he will inevitably receive following *that* fight, look forward to seeing Diaz return to action sometime in 2020.
If his most recent performance against Jake Shields at WSOF 23 taught us anything, it’s that Rousimar Palhares is not just an asshole, but a willfully dense asshole who poses a consistent threat to his opponents that reaches far beyond what the rules of the sport allow. He was disciplined on two separate occasions during his time in the UFC for holding onto submissions too long — the second of which earned him his walking papers — and was stripped of his title and suspended indefinitely following the Shields incident in August.
The man is clearly a danger to himself and anyone around him, but mainly to anyone around him, is what we’re saying.
Enter the Nevada State Athletic Commission, a group of supposed authorities on the sport who have proved their incompetence at nearly every possible venue. Whether they are struggling to figure out how a conference call line works to hilarious effect or spending upwards of two hours questioning a fighter about Thai black market sex juice, NSAC has proved time and time again that they will never recover from the departure of Keith Kizer.
Having most recently incurred the wrath of MMA fans worldwide for their decision to suspend Nick Diaz for an unprecedented five years, few of us knew how the NSAC would treat a repeat offender of Palhares’ nature during today’s hearing (which was sadly not available on Fight Pass), especially once it was revealed that he had opted not to have a lawyer represent him. The answer, as it turns out, is typical of what you’d expect from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
If his most recent performance against Jake Shields at WSOF 23 taught us anything, it’s that Rousimar Palhares is not just an asshole, but a willfully dense asshole who poses a consistent threat to his opponents that reaches far beyond what the rules of the sport allow. He was disciplined on two separate occasions during his time in the UFC for holding onto submissions too long — the second of which earned him his walking papers – and was stripped of his title and suspended indefinitely following the Shields incident in August.
The man is clearly a danger to himself and anyone around him, but mainly to anyone around him, is what we’re saying.
Enter the Nevada State Athletic Commission, a group of supposed authorities on the sport who have proved their incompetence at nearly every possible venue. Whether they are struggling to figure out how a conference call line works to hilarious effect or spending upwards of two hours questioning a fighter about Thai black market sex juice, NSAC has proved time and time again that they will never recover from the departure of Keith Kizer.
Having most recently incurred the wrath of MMA fans worldwide for their decision to suspend Nick Diaz for an unprecedented five years, few of us knew how the NSAC would treat a repeat offender of Palhares’ nature during today’s hearing (which was sadly not available on Fight Pass), especially once it was revealed that he had opted not to have a lawyer represent him. The answer, as it turns out, is typical of what you’d expect from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
But before we get to that, let’s allow Bleacher Report’s Jeremy Botter — who was in attendance at today’s meeting and live-tweeting the entire thing — break down the absolute clusterfuck that Palhares’ defense was.
First off, referee Steve Mazzagatti was sworn in to provide his side of the story, having been the man who attempted in vain to pry Palhares off of Shields on the night in question.
It’s never a good look when Steve freakin’ Mazzagatti is calling a guy out for his incompetence, but OK, we’ve established that Palhares had his hand held right up to the moment he decided to use it to main yet another fighter. Now let’s get to the man himself…
Why a man who has both a tenuous grasp on both the English language and the sport he is competing in would choose to represent himself is just one of the many mysteries of the man they call “Tree Stump” (also “He Who Ate My Children”).
At this point in the meeting, NSAC commissioner Pat Lundvall laid into Palhares with the fire of a thousand suns, telling “Toquinho” that “it didn’t matter what your opponent did, you were going to hold it” before calling in surprise witness Big John McCarthy to further bury Palhares for the no good dirty sumbitch that he is.
McCarthy went on record as saying that, though Palhares seemed to be a nice enough guy out of the cage, “disconnect somewhere concerning fight stoppages” and “a disregard for the safety of his opponents.”
“If Nick Diaz got 5 years for weed, Palhares is most definitely about to get hammered for life,” we collectively murmured on Twitter, and oh wouldn’t that be some life-affirming justice!!
Of course, you know by now that the NSAC is about anything but justice, which is why, despite calling in expert witnesses to lambast a repeat, violent offender who perjured himself on multiple occasions during his own testimony, the commission ultimately slapped Palhares with a two year suspension and a $40,000 fine (plus court fees).
I don’t even know where to begin. Any attempt at a hyperbolic rant would be null and void when compared to the actual facts, which seems to be that repeatedly smoking weed will get you a five year suspension, while repeatedly causing excessive physical harm to others will get you only two. Despite all her posturing and fervor aimed at Palhares, Lundvall wrapped things up by stating, and I quote, that “they [couldn’t] issue the most severe punishment because they’ve never done so before.” This is the kind of airtight logic that the governing body of the sport abides by, ladies and gentlemen.
We once again throw it over to Jeremy Botter for comment.
Details and Diaz’s reaction to the hearing are after the jump.
And not only that, but Diaz was additionally fined 33 percent of his purse, or $150,000.
I feel like this is where I normally would launch into some hyperbolic rant about the state of mixed martial arts regulation, but I’m absolutely speechless. If Diaz’s suspension is somehow upheld, he will not be able to return to competition until he is 36 years old (unless the UFC releases him from his contract and allows him to fight overseas, which LOL). The most confusing angle of all this? Anderson Silva tested positive for steroids on two occasions prior to UFC 183 and received a slap on the wrist. Diaz tested positive for marijuana once in three tests and received a suspension five times as long.
According to ESPN, however, Diaz’s attorney, Lucas Middlebrook, Diaz will appeal the commission’s “personal vendetta suspension” at the earliest convenience.
The online reaction to the NSAC hearing has been swift and brutal. BloodyElbow’s Connor Ruebusch, in an open letter, wrote that the letter set a clear precedence that “obeisance is preferable to innocence.” Marc Raimondi called the whole thing a “farce” and even Ariel Helwani got in on the pile-on, stating “Once again NAC sends message that they would prefer you admit to all with a puppy dog face, kiss their ass and beg for forgiveness. Insanity.”
Diaz’s reaction was a bit…um…less eloquent. (via Brett Okamoto)
This isn’t to mention the fact that the NSAC’s hearing violates the rules they put into place four months ago, which suggested a 36-month ban for third offense marijuana users. So add that to the list of things that are completely f*cked up about today’s hearing.
(“Tell them, she was not empressed wid my performance.”)
Anderson Silva has always been a bit of an odd duck. He’s trolled the MMA media, he’s trolled fighters, and he’s even trolled Steven Seagal into thinking he was a legitimate force in MMA. As every genius is also a bit a loon, Silva’s behaviors in the cage were very much a reflection of his personality outside of it. Wow, that might be the classiest line ever written in an article about erectile disfunction.
The point is, the G.O.A.T’s long-awaited NSAC hearing regarding his positive tests for Drostanolone (among other substances) both before and after UFC 183 took place yesterday, and the only way to describe it would be “the UFC 162 of NSAC hearings.” Silva showed up, clowned around, and took a huge blow to his reputation (not to mention his wallet) by the time all was said and done.
All the details and highlights from this circus are after the jump.
(“Tell them, she was not empressed wid my performance.”)
Anderson Silva has always been a bit of an odd duck. He’s trolled the MMA media, he’s trolled fighters, and he’s even trolled Steven Seagal into thinking he was a legitimate force in MMA. As every genius is also a bit a loon, Silva’s behaviors in the cage were very much a reflection of his personality outside of it. Wow, that might be the classiest line ever written in an article about erectile disfunction.
The point is, the G.O.A.T’s long-awaited NSAC hearing regarding his positive tests for Drostanolone (among other substances) both before and after UFC 183 took place yesterday, and the only way to describe it would be “the UFC 162 of NSAC hearings.” Silva showed up, clowned around, and took a huge blow to his reputation (not to mention his wallet) by the time all was said and done.
In case you hadn’t already heard, Silva’s planned defense heading into the hearing was that he had ingested drostanolone unknowingly as a result of taking a sexual performance pill. Yes, that’s actually what they came up with, and no, I’m still not entirely sure if this whole thing wasn’t Silva’s chef-d’oeuvre of trolling. It was a defense that was at best considered dubious — that was, until Silva’s entire defense team began to implode under the weight of what was obviously a boldfaced lie.
No one — not Silva’s first translator, not Paul Scott, not Ed Soares or Silva himself — could keep their stories straight. They forgot, then remembered the dates that he had allegedly stopped taking whatever he was on. They claimed that the cocktail of anxiety meds also found in Silva’s system at the time of UFC 183 were taken to combat his sciatic nerve pain, which again, no one knew about. Scott, the expert who who was brought in by Silva’s legal team to back the most bizarre steroid excuse since Vinicius de Queiroz contracted Stanozolol from a sauna, said he did not bring the findings upon which Silva’s entire defense hinged because, and I quote, “he did not think he would need them.”
It was at this point in the hearing that my mind just goddamn exploded.
THIS?! THIS WAS THE BEST YOU COULD COME UP WITH, ANDY? THIS IS WHAT THE HEARING WAS DELAYED *TWICE* FOR?!! (*smashes co-worker’s computer*)
This then led into a long and extremely uncomfortable investigation of Silva’s sex life, and more specifically, why he both decided to take an unprescribed sexual enhancer his friend had picked up in Thailand — a “little blue vial” as it was referred to and I must reiterate that I am not making any of this up — and failed to disclose it on his UFC 183 pre-fight medicals. I’ll let MMAJunkie take it from here, because again, even I’m having trouble believing me and need a consult an outside source:
As Silva explained, this liquid in the blue vial was more affective than Cialis, meaning, it wasn’t the kind of thing he would get from a doctor, and it definitely wasn’t something he would disclose to an athletic commission, which held his professional career in the balance after a trio of positive drug tests revealed four banned substances in his system.
“I didn’t disclose I was taking the Cialis because I didn’t think it would come up,” Silva said, via his longtime translator and manager Ed Soares, who early on in the fighter’s testimony clashed with the translator hired by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, the wife of former UFC executive Mike Mersch. “Prior to other fights, whatever medications I took, I always disclosed, and I brought the medication to the show. I would be very uncomfortable looking at you and saying I’m taking Cialis prior the fight.”
Silva contemplatively rubbed his chin on a microphone during the hearing, adding more audio to the spectacle streamed live on UFC Fight Pass.
Yep. Silva made what might be the most subtle homophobic joke of all time, then rubbed his mic on the chin. This all happened.
Silva’s attorney, Nevada-based Michael Alonso, couldn’t answer why the PED androstane, in addition to drostanolone, had shown up in a Jan. 9 out-of-competition test. He flatly said “I don’t know” when NSAC chairman Francisco Aguilar questioned why drostanolone – a drug with a weeklong half-life, according to the attorney general’s expert at the WADA-accredited lab that popped Silva for PEDs – had shown up in Silva’s pre- and post-fight tests when the 40-year-old fighter claimed to stop using the supercharged sexual enhancer on Jan. 8.
That was Anderson Silva’s attorney, everybody. That was a man that Silva presumably paid boatloads of cash to defend him in perhaps the most damning moment of his career, and all the guy could come up with was ¯_(?)_/¯.
I f*cking love this sport, you guys…(*wipes away tear*)
Oh, and did I mention the music? By God, the music! Silva’s hearing was loudly and frequently interrupted by sex-themed numbers like the one above, which blasted through the conference phone with the vigor of a man loaded to the gills on a Thai black market sex drink. Also on the playlist: Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, Boyz 2 Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You”, and Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, of course.
Once the dust had settled, Silva and Alonso looked like broken men. As with UFC 162, Silva had done more to hurt himself than his opponent could have possibly hoped to. His legal team had let out just enough rope to hang themselves, and were in turn skewered early and often by the NSAC committee for their conflicting testimonies and “hokey” defense.
“I think he’s done excellent things, but this is the first time he’s really been subject to enhanced testing,” said chairman Anthony Marnell. “We’re just playing games. And that’s my frustration at all this soft testimony.”
Hehe. Soft Testimony. Marnell just done drove a railroad spike through Anderson Silva’s pride with that one. (*cues “Thug Life” meme*)
Bob Bennett called Silva’s pre-fight questionnaire “false” and Silva’s explanations “inconsistent and inappropriate.” Pat Lundvall called labelled his pre-fight medicals “intentionally falsified.” It was then that Silva’s punishment was handed down: A 12-month suspension and a $380,000 fine (!).
The UFC seems to be handling it well, in case you’re wondering. Here’s their official statement:
Following the Nevada Athletic Commission’s hearing today, Anderson Silva is required to serve a 12-month suspension from competition, retroactive from his last fight on January 31. At the conclusion of his suspension, Silva must present a clean test upon reapplication of a license before his next fight in Nevada. The UFC organization maintains a strict, consistent policy against the use of any illegal and/or performance enhancing drugs, stimulants or masking agents by its athletes, and fully supports the Commission’s ongoing efforts to ensure clean competition by all MMA athletes.
UFC recognizes Silva’s great career and looks forward to his return to the Octagon in 2016.
It’s been awhile since Wanderlei Silva gave us a career update via a dimly-lit video recorded in a rape dungeon, and while many fans have all but completely forgotten about his existence in that time, the former PRIDE and UFC star has kept busy attempting to valiantly restore some credibility to his name. And today, it appears he may have actually made a little headway in that quest.
It’s been awhile since Wanderlei Silva gave us a career update via a dimly-lit video recorded in a rape dungeon, and while many fans have all but completely forgotten about his existence in that time, the former PRIDE and UFC star has kept busy attempting to valiantly restore some credibility to his name. And today, it appears he may have actually made a little headway in that quest.
And now, Silva has finally achieved (some of) the “justice” he was seeking, and is understandably thrilled. In his latest video statement released earlier today, he even managed to up the production value and shoot it in one of his gyms!
When you stand up in favor of a working class, all that you want is for the workers to be treated better. You want their rights to be given to them, and not only their duties. Every regulatory entity has laws which the entity itself must follow.
Today, history was made for all MMA athletes. We succeeded at reversing a very unjust sentence given by this commission. I hope this never happens to another athlete; to have to fight in court for their right to work. It’s not right for the commission to do that. they can’t be above the law. We need to make clear the regulatory laws.
As we’ve reiterated after viewing each of Wandy’s vlogs, he undoubtedly makes some good points about the state of the sport and the steps necessary to improve. But as always, one must first consider the source, and it’s hard to overlook the fact that Wandy only became the caped crusader of equality MMA after he was essentially blacklisted from it.
But where does Wandy — and our sport in general — do with this ruling? To put it simply, we’re not entirely sure. Wandy will be forced to appear in person before the NAC for a rehearing of the case at a date TBD, but according to Combat Sports Law, Early’s ruling granted NSAC the power “to conduct out of competition drug tests for individuals not previously licensed in their jurisdiction,” although the scope of their authority remains a bit of a mystery. With NSAC still redefining the length of punishments for various substances and the UFC preparing to launch its own year-round, out-of competition drug testing program, a lot remains up in the air regarding the sport’s future.
All that said, Wanderlei is speaking as if he is already a vindicated man.
I want to thank you for all your support. You are like family to me. To everyone, in every city, around the world, supporting me through your screen. Even after not fighting for two years, my fans never abandon me. You are not just fans, you are real friends. After dedicating my entire life to something, you are what makes it worth it.
In every city I go there are lines of people to see me and give me a hug. I love to feel your affection towards me. It’s priceless. To all of you in the Wand family, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope to personally meet you one day in your city to say my sincere thank you.
Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz have requested continuances for their hearings before the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The news on Silva was first reported by Combate and was then confirmed by Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com to be true for Diaz as well. Both men, who failed drug tests administered by Las Vegas’ sanctioning body surrounding their bout at UFC […]
Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz have requested continuances for their hearings before the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The news on Silva was first reported by Combate and was then confirmed by Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com to be true for Diaz as well. Both men, who failed drug tests administered by Las Vegas’ sanctioning body surrounding their bout at UFC […]
