Tag: UFC 183

(“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.

As do we. As do we.

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