UFC 184 officially gained two massive championship bouts.
At the event, which takes place Feb. 28 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Chris Weidman will look to defend his middleweight strap against Vitor Belfort, while women’s bantamweight sup…
UFC 184 officially gained two massive championship bouts.
At the event, which takes place Feb. 28 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Chris Weidman will look to defend his middleweight strap against VitorBelfort, while women’s bantamweight superstar Ronda Rousey will defend her title against Cat Zingano.
While Weidman vs. Belfort was already expected to go down in Los Angeles at UFC 184 (h/t MMAFighting.com), the addition of Rousey vs. Zingano is fresh for MMA fans.
That bout was originally reported to happen at UFC 182 in Las Vegas, but now that does not appear to be the case.
Instead, the UFC is stacking UFC 184, putting two big-time championship bouts at the top for the Los Angeles crowd and pay-per-views buyers at home.
This fight will mark Rousey‘s fifth title defense since coming into the UFC at UFC 157 in February 2013, where she defeated Liz Carmouche via armbar.
Since that time, she’s been relatively untouched in professional action, submitting rival Miesha Tate with an armbar at UFC 168 and knocking out Sara McMann and Alexis Davis at UFC 170 and UFC 175, respectively.
Zingano, on the other hand, recently notched her ninth professional victory in nine tries over Amanda Nunes at UFC 178 on Sept. 28 of this year.
After a nearly year-and-a-half absence from the sport, Zingano earned a third-round TKO over Nunes after facing some early adversity, solidifying her position as Rousey‘s No. 1 contender.
Stay tuned to Bleacher Report as the UFC 184 fight card continues to take shape.
(Well, the visual evidence is definitely on Belfort’s side.)
Back in July, UFC middleweight Vitor Belfort went before the Nevada State Athletic Commission to answer for his failed drug test for elevated testosterone in February. It went pretty well, which is completely unsurprising since a big-money fight against Chris Weidman hung in the balance. Belfort was given a conditional license, and his title challenge against Weidman was immediately booked for December 6th in Las Vegas.
But NSAC commissioner Anthony Marnell left Belfort with this dire warning: “[W]e’re going to drug test you to the day you retire…We, in my opinion, should be in and around your career until the day you call it quits.”
Hell yeah! Nevada is gonna be up in them guts, son! [Ed. note: Gross.]
Except, no, not really. The truth is, Belfort hasn’t been drug-tested at all (!) since July 23rd, and the NSAC has no intention of testing him before his fight against Weidman, since that fight will now likely take place in California in late February at UFC 184. MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani breaks it:
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.
(Well, the visual evidence is definitely on Belfort’s side.)
Back in July, UFC middleweight Vitor Belfort went before the Nevada State Athletic Commission to answer for his failed drug test for elevated testosterone in February. It went pretty well, which is completely unsurprising since a big-money fight against Chris Weidman hung in the balance. Belfort was given a conditional license, and his title challenge against Weidman was immediately booked for December 6th in Las Vegas.
But NSAC commissioner Anthony Marnell left Belfort with this dire warning: “[W]e’re going to drug test you to the day you retire…We, in my opinion, should be in and around your career until the day you call it quits.”
Hell yeah! Nevada is gonna be up in them guts, son! [Ed. note: Gross.]
Except, no, not really. The truth is, Belfort hasn’t been drug-tested at all (!) since July 23rd, and the NSAC has no intention of testing him before his fight against Weidman, since that fight will now likely take place in California in late February at UFC 184. MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani breaks it:
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…
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.
So, to summarize: The Nevada commission left Belfort unsupervised for three full months after his re-licensing hearing, and is now washing its hands of the entire matter because California will probably deal with it. Nevada’s idea of getting tough is doing literally nothing. Chris Weidman is as shocked as we are.
Luckily, California will indeed take on the responsibility that the NSAC has shirked. From the MMAFighting report:
[Andy] 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.
Well, at least it’s in the hands of professionals now. The last commission you’d want handling Vitor Belfort’s drug testing is the one that would hire Chael Sonnen as an expert.
Chris Weidman will likely defend his UFC middleweight title against Vitor Belfort at UFC 184 in Los Angeles, California, according to MMAJunkie.com’s Steven Marrocco.
The champ was previously pulled from his UFC 181 bout with Belfort in Las Vegas…
The champ was previously pulled from his UFC 181 bout with Belfort in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to MMAFighting.com’s Guilherme Cruz, after needing time to heal a hairline fracture in his hand. Now, it looks like the bout is headed to the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 28.
And that detail—moving the fight from Nevada to California—matters.
Belfort famously came under close review by the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) after failing a February of 2014 drug test for elevated testosterone, and the commission’s ruling on July 23 looked to keep Belfort in check and operating within the sport’s guidelines ahead of his title fight with Weidman.
Exactly three months ago, the Nevada Athletic Commission granted VitorBelfort 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.
Yet, Helwani reports Belfort has been tested precisely zero times since the ruling was given, and now with the fight taking place in California, the situation is out of the NAC‘s hands.
Thankfully, NAC executive director Bob Bennett told Helwani he feels confident that California State Athletic Commission executive officer Andy Foster will take command of the situation and execute proper drug testing ahead of the bout.
Foster, to his credit, seems on board with random, frequent testing for the challenger.
“He’s not going to get a free pass,” Foster told Helwani. “He will have blood and urine randomly tested. I would be shocked and amazed if he cheated.”
Despite these assurances, Weidman is not happy with the situation. Upon hearing that Belfort has not been tested since the ruling three months ago, he tweeted:
While the bout is still months away, it’s clear that it has already picked up considerable steam. Add in this latest drug-testing controversy, and Weidman vs. Belfort will come under the microscope of MMA fans and media leading up to the bout.
Stay tuned to Bleacher Report as the situation continues to develop.
UFC 184 officially gained two massive championship bouts. 