For many months Chael Sonnen had questioned whether Wanderlei Silva would fight him.
“He likes to say that I just talk, and I do like to talk, but I signed to fight as soon as I arrived here in Brazil,” said Sonnen in February. “They changed the place of the fight and I signed again. But he didn’t sign anything yet. His papers are still white. I can say that I haven’t seen he take off his shirt not a single time, he have never worked out or trained in this period. I think he is not planning to fight me or anybody. Never again.”
And now…
chael sonnen @sonnench
Called it.
In news broken by Brazil’s Combate, Wand failed to take (or therefore pass) medical tests, and is out vs. Sonnen at UFC 175 on July 5. Combate reports that Sonnen and Silva were mandated to show at a meeting by the Nevada State Athletic Commission; Sonnen did and will be licensed, while Silva didn’t and will not be licensed.
The report also says that instead Vitor Belfort will be fighting Chael Sonnen on the same card.
There have been multiple confirmations of the unfortunate news.
Wanderlei responded with an enigmatic tweet.
@wandfc Wanderlei Silva
Que é isso???? Não estou acreditando!!!!
(translation: What is this ??? I’m not believing!!!)
Belfort was originally scheduled to fight Chris Weidman for the middleweight title at UFC 173 last Saturday. But when the NSAC banned TRT in Feb, Belfort said he needed time to transition off TRT, and was removed from the fight. Then Lyoto Machida was put in, and after Weidman needed knee surgery, the fight was moved from UFC 173 to UFC 175. Now Belfort is back in, but against Sonnen.
Belfort is reportedly not licensed yet, but is expected to be.
UFC 175 will be headlined by UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida, and UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis.
The Gangster from Oregon offered what will not be the last word on UFC Tonight on FOX Sports 1.
Wanderlei has operated his entire career under the suspicion that he was using performance-enhancing drugs, said Sonnen as transcribed by 5thRound.com. However, he has never failed a drug test. So, we don’t speculate on those types of things.
That clean record came to a screeching halt on Saturday night. Not only did he fail his test, he refused to take his test, and as you know, a refusal is equal in the eyes of the commission to a failure. He ran from the test. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean, they came to his gym and he literally ran. He goes out a side door. They came after him saying his name.”
I have not spoken to the athletic commission of Nevada, so here I am going to speculate. They will revoke his license and perhaps his career with the UFC will be done.”
