9 Things You Need To Know About Mark Hunt's Lawsuit Against Brock Lesnar & UFC
6. The Vitor Belfort Factor
One of the keys to the Hunt lawsuit, from what we know so far, is a Brazilian fighter and former UFC light heavyweight champion - Vitor Belfort. What does the Brazilian ex-champ have to do with all of this?
That's an excellent question. In order to prove that the UFC has a history of shady behavior surrounding drug cheats, Hunt's suit is suggesting that the UFC knew about, and worked to cover up, a failed Belfort drug test several years ago. That stemmed from UFC 152, when Belfort faced Jon Jones. Three years after the event, reporter Josh Gross uncovered that the UFC had knowledge of abnormalities in Belfort's drug tests after he began testosterone replacement therapy - a controversial but then permitted program that many considered sanctioned cheating. He was allowed to fight Jones anyway.
How did that leak out? Well, in 2012, a UFC paralegal attempted to send an e-mail to UFC execs with Belfort's lab results, Instead, he e-mailed a number of key individuals in the MMA world, then followed it up with a message reading "please delete ASAP!!!!" The e-mail made the rounds for several years but never saw the light of day until the Gross story.
It may seem damning, especially since Belfort has a long history with performance enhancing drugs. Yet many of the key players involved are no longer with the UFC, and drug testing has since become a huge focus in the promotion. How damaging an incident from years prior will turn out remains to be seen. Belfort, meanwhile, headlines a UFC card in March.