LOS ANGELES – Michael Bisping has suffered losses to Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva. What do those three fighters have in common? They’ve all been caught up in drug testing scandals over the past several months.
While these scandals came up well after each man stepped in the octagon to compete with Bisping, “The Count” says he’s positive he wasn’t playing on an even field during his 2013 bout with Belfort, his 2012 contest with Sonnen and his 2010 matchup against Silva.
“They weren’t clean,” Bisping told MMAjunkie. “We all know they weren’t f–king clean. They’ve only just started doing blood tests. People have been taking (human) growth hormone and EPO and all kinds of s–t for years. A urine sample will only show certain things, and people know when to come off stuff. It’s an IQ test. The blood test they do now will catch more people because they’re testing for more things, but they didn’t do that before.”
Belfort, who knocked Bisping out at UFC on FX 7 in January 2013, has failed two drug tests during his storied MMA career. The first came under the PRIDE banner in 2006, when he was flagged for elevated testosterone levels. The second came in February, when the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) ordered “The Phenom” to take a random drug test that showed irregular testosterone ratios. Belfort, however, insists those ratios were a result of his testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT) treatment.
The former UFC light heavyweight champion was on TRT for his fight with Bisping. At the time of the fight, TRT was permissible for fighters with a prescription, but it has since been banned in most regulated jurisdictions. Now that Belfort is off the treatment, Bisping is curious to see the changes in his physical attributes and performance.
“Vitor is not going to be the same,” Bisping said. “You can already see it. His physique looks remarkably different already. Of course, since this all kicked off in when he got tested, he’s obviously been clean since then, and that was six, seven months ago and you can see the difference. It’s going to be very interesting when you see Vitor at the weigh-in (at UFC 181 against Chris Weidman) and you see his physique compared to the last few times he’s fought and the guy looked like he was in a bodybuilding contest.”
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