Mainstream Media Reports UFC Cover Up In Vitor Belfort Drug Test

Before his fight with UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, at the weigh-ins, Vitor Belfort got an ear full from the champ, who started yelling at him about his testosterone levels, accusing him of still being on something.

Belfort ended up losing that fight. In a recent interview, Belfort actually turned the tables and said that people should have been paying attention to Weidman’s levels and asked ‘Did he cycle off?’

Well now, according to a new report from Josh Gross published on Deadspin, the attention is back on Belfort regarding testosterone levels. This time it has to do with test results from back at UFC 152, when he fought champion Jon Jones.

The report details a strange situation where Belfort tested for high levels of testosterone three weeks ahead of the fight.

[The] document shows that Belfort’s free testosterone levels were high—two and a half times above the average for a man his age, in fact. At a time when the TRT exemption as a form of sanctioned doping was becoming a major issue in the sport, the document rightly raised suspicions among those who received it.

The report goes on to talk about how the results were supposed to be sent via email to three UFC executives, however, due to an accident, they were sent out “to a group of 29 fighters, managers, and trainers.”

Here’s a timeline from Gross’s report, showing how the email was sent out, then how the UFC attempted to do damage control and sent out another message telling everyone who received the results to delete the message.

Sept. 4, 2012, got interesting at 3:01 p.m. Pacific time for the people who received the .pdf from the UFC. A paralegal working for the UFC had meant to send an email with the subject “Vitor Belfort Labs” to three UFC executives. Instead, much of the known MMA world, including several people with whom the promotion openly feuded in the past, received it.

At 3:04, the paralegal sent out an email attempting to recall the original message.

At 3:55, a third email explained that the original had been sent in error and that the attempt to recall had come too late. Recipients were asked to “please disregard the e-mail, please delete ASAP!!!!!”

At 7:16, recipients got a memorandum from Ike Lawrence Epstein, UFC’s executive vice president and general counsel at the time:

This was the message recipients apparently received from Epstein:

You were the unintended recipient of an email that contained personal, confidential information related to Vitor Belfort. We ask that you destroy the email and the contents thereof immediately if you already have not, and that you refrain from any disclosure of the contents of the email or further dissemination of the email or contents thereof to anyone. You do not have the authority to be in possession of or to disclose to any third party this information. Please note that if you have and/or intend to disclose and/or disseminate this information to anyone, Zuffa will have no choice but to seek all available judicial remedies against you in both your professional and personal capacities. I respectfully request that you confirm via a response to this email that you have received this email and that you will comply with the directives contained herein by immediately. Please contact me if you have any questions, or wish to discuss further.

Here were the key statements regarding Belfort’s test and his levels ahead of UFC 152, showing he tested for levels two and a half times what  man his age would usually test for.

Check it out!

Belfort’s test—administered, according to these records, on Sept. 1, 2012 by Dr. Pierce—measured 1038 nanograms of testosterone per deciliter. A person in Belfort’s age range is more likely to be in the 700s, so while this result was within the normal range, it was near the high end of it. His free testosterone levels, though, were clearly elevated.

Beneath “FLAG,” to the right of the “RESULT” column on the LabCorp document, Belfort’s free testosterone result is labeled in bold as “High.”The acceptable range listed on LabCorp metrics—standards vary between laboratories—is 8.7 to 25.1 picograms, or a trillionth of a gram, per milliliter.

Belfort’s free testosterone, which encompasses .5- to 3-percent of the testosterone in the body and is crucial to enhancing recovery and performance, registered 47.7 pg/ml. That’s two and a half times where a man his age should have been.

Feel free to check out the whole report, but what do you guys make of this? So apparently Belfort tested with hight levels ahead of the fight with Jon Jones and the UFC knew, but still let him fight. Thoughts?

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