Not so fast! Mark Hunt maintains fight with Overeem is not official

Over the course of this week, reports have continued to surface that fan favorite heavyweight Mark Hunt will be fighting MMA veteran Alistair Overeem at UFC 209. Despite that, Hunt has continued to maintain that he will not be fighting until the UFC agrees to put a clause in his contract protecting him from fighting a fighter who ends up testing positive for PEDs.

Hunt has maintained following his UFC 200 loss to Brock Lesnar, who failed two drug tests surrounding the fight, that he would not fight again until the UFC put a provision in contracts protecting fighters from those who fail drug tests.

Last month he spoke on BJPenn.com Radio about how the UFC is not cooperating, and how it has forced him to turn down two fights

“There was actually two fights that I turned down. The first fight I turned down was the one against Josh Barnett, me & Josh Barnett in Melbourne. I had to turn that down because nothing has been done about it, they offered me JDS (Junior dos Santos) in Canada [at UFC 206], and I said ‘if you guys change this, put this provision in my contract, I’ll do the fight, of course.’ I’m not one to turn down any fights, I just want it to be even now. It’s not the company’s fault that these guys are cheating, but I do feel that they should systems in place.”

“These guys want to do it for financial gain, so you take that away, that’s the start of stopping these steroid users.”

Now, a month later, despite the fact that the UFC has formally announced Overeem vs. Hunt, it is being reported that Hunt maintains he will not fight unless the provision is in his contract:

According to @markhunt1974, still no resolution to contract clause issue w/ UFC. No word from UFC yet either. He maintains no fight w/o it.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) December 23, 2016

Only time will tell if the UFC brass works with Hunt on the matter.