A Tale of Two Vitors

A TALE OF TWO VITORS

Vitor Belfort is one of the most important, enigmatic, and now, controversial, fighters in mma history.

Vitor jacked out of his mind as a 19 year old fighting in the UFC in 1997.

Perhaps the single best athlete in the sport's short existence, Vitor has been blessed with otherworldly speed, excellent hand-eye coordination, and explosive strength.  His boxing technique, honed over decades of training, is legendary by mma standards.  He is an underrated wrestler (Vitor took Chuck Liddell down multiple times in their respective primes, during a time period in which nobody could put Chuck on his back), and has a black belt in jiu jitsu.

Despite having been a former UFC champion (He won the 205 lb belt via a freak cut stoppage seconds into his second fight with Randy Couture),

Vitor looking rather large celebrating his destruction of Marvin Eastman  in 2003.  

Vitor is widely considered a waste of talent, plagued by mental weakness and stamina issues (to say nothing of his propensity to take a dive, as he is widely rumored to have done against Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba).  More than his fast hands, scintillating knockouts, uneven performances, and this, Vitor will be remembered most as being the man who brought TRT usage in mma to the forefront.

Currently, athletic commissions allow TRT usage if the fighter has a doctor's note saying that the fighter has low T and needs synthetic testosterone to get into the normal range.  Of course, this is problematic.
First of all, one of the main reasons for low testosterone is previous steroid use.  Thus, by allowing guys to use TRT, athletic commissions are basically rewarding previous steroid use (further, the benefits of steroids stay in the system and give athletes gains long after stopping drug use).  Secondly, just as with fighters who use real steroids instead of TRT (testosterone is the base chemical of steroids), fighters who use TRT can taper their drug use so that when they are finally tested after the fight, their levels are actually in the normal range.  The Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) has offered to do a year-round testing program for the UFC for free (for the first year of the program), but the UFC did not respond.

The lack of response by the UFC to such an offer should come as a surprise to no one.  Zuffa (parent company of the UFC), has no incentive to further test its stable of fighters, many of whom would be caught red-handed in a more thorough testing program.  Why would Zuffa want to lose more of its big name fighters to suspension, which would damage the UFC's cash flow (via lower pay per view buy rates), and ruin its reputation?  From a business standpoint, further testing has no place in the UFC's business model.

Given the UFC's aversion to serious testing, Vitor's re-emergence has become a particularly interesting phenomenon.  Vitor was originally busted for steroids in 2006 while he was fighting for Pride (Japan's now-defunct version of the UFC), but his physical appearance in the Wild West days of mma (before it became an officially sanctioned sport) leaves little mystery as to whether or not he was using.  So how would Vitor, in an environment in which he could not outright cheat, return to the top?  Simple: he would use TRT, the same drug that Chael Sonnen, Dan Henderson, Rampage Jackson, and countless others have used to beat the system.

Vitor's physical appearance since he came back to the UFC in 2009 has changed dramatically.

In Vitor's first fight back, against former champion Rich Franklin, Vitor looked (by his standards)

Vitor, au naturale, sans steroids, looking merely mortal against Rich Franklin in  2009.

pudgy, but still iced Franklin in the first round with his blazing handspeed.  A new contender at 185 pounds emerged, injecting (clever pun intended) some much needed life into the 185 pound division.

Vitor, in his last pre-TRT fight, looking soft against Anderson Silva in 2011.

In Vitor's next fight, against Anderson Silva (a fight in which Vitor was KO'd brutally with a front kick to the face after an exceedingly tense first few minutes of action), Belfort again looked like a human being, rather than a cartoon character.  Something had to change for Vitor to get his mojo back.  That change was TRT.

Vitor's next two fights after the Silva loss were against undersized middleweight Yoshihiro Akiyama (Vitor won by KO in round 1), and Anthony Johnson (who missed weight by an unbelievable 12 pounds).  Vitor, always fragile of mind, took no chances, and managed to entirely change his body.  Hmm, I wonder how he did it?  Of course we can assume that he used TRT legally, which is what makes the issue so confounding: how can state athletic commissions give a hall pass for use of a product that is steroids in all but name, but suspend and fine people for using marijuana?

Vitor in 2012 against Anthony Johnson.  TRT to the rescue!

Vitor has not tried to hide his TRT usage, which has created an embarrassing situation for the UFC.  Dana White, perhaps the man most prone to lying ever born, said that the UFC would "test the living shit out" of TRT users.  Of course, members of the mma media (mostly morons) were too scared to write anything negative about Mr. White's propensity for lying, and the mainstream media members were too uninformed to offer an intelligent rebuttal or to doubt Dana's (worthless) word.  The scam continued.

Things started to come to a head earlier this year, when Vitor, looking like a serial killer crossed with a bodybuilder crossed with a drug addict, absolutely massacred Mike Bisping.  This fight

Vitor looking like a movie bad guy on meth, TRT'd out of his mind against Bisping in 2013.

raised the ire of fans, who scoffed at Vitor's TRT-tainted victory and his incredibly cocky and casual attitude about cheating.  Vitor looked a weight class heavier than Bisping, and was shredded to ridiculous levels for anyone, let alone a 36 year old man who was sporting love handles 3 years earlier.  Of course, Vitor denies any and all wrongdoing: "For me, it's no problem. I'm not doing anything illegal, so I'm not ashamed of anything."

Even Dana White (who would claim the sun rises in the north and sets in the south if it would help him sell pay per view buys) had to change his tune when faced with the obvious evidence (that being Vitor's body) that TRT makes a huge difference in fights.  Instead of parroting the official line that the athletic commissions do a great job and that UFC fighters are the most tested fighters on Earth, Dana came out and said that there should be no TRT exemptions. 

Again, last night, Vitor, sporting his TRT physique, demolished Luke Rockhold, flooring the

Vitor last night, looking like a character from Mortal Kombat

former Strikeforce champ with a spinning head kick.  Again, fans scoff.  Why is someone who has previously tested positive for steroids allowed to use TRT?  It is wild.  Keith Kizer, the head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, is on record as saying that Belfort will likely not be able to get a TRT therapeutic use exemption (TUE) in that state due to his previous documented roiding.  This puts the UFC in a bit of a pickle:  Vitor is clearly the 2nd or 3rd best 185 pounder on the planet, and his next fight should be the winner of the upcoming Anderson Silva vs Chris Weidman title fight.  However, if Vitor can't get licensed by state athletic commissions (last night's fight was in Brazil, as was his demolition of Bisping), then what will happen?  Only time will tell.  The only certainty is that the current rules governing TRT use are a joke and a black eye on the sport.  I would say the odds of the UFC cleaning up TRT use are almost nill, as are the odds of the state athletic commissions halting their hand-outs of TUEs (for the same reason--big fights are big dollars).