Chael Sonnen will no longer be fighting his ‘TUF Brazil 3’ nemesis Wanderlei Silva at UFC 175 and instead will be fighting previous middle weight #1 contender Vitor Belfort.
Sonnen has never been known to bite his tongue and yesterday on UFC Tonight he gave his reasons for his change of opponents at UFC 175.
“Wanderlei has operated his entire career under the shadow of suspicion that he was using performance enhancing drugs. However he has never failed a drug test, so we don’t speculate on those types of things,” said Sonnen. “That clean record came to a screeching halt on Saturday night. Not only did he fail his test, he refused to take the test, and as you know a refusal is equal in the eyes of the commission to a failure. He ran from the test, Kenny, and I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean they came to his gym and he literally ran. He goes out of a side door, they go after him saying his name.
“I have not spoke to the athletic commission in Nevada, so here I am going to speculate that they will revoke his license, and perhaps his career in the UFC will be done.”
Those are serious allegation made by Sonnen but it seems to explain the peculiar manner in which this story leaked. The original story came from a Brazilian television station and not the UFC. Them gaining the info from someone at the gym at the time would explain why they released the info before any American outlets had the chance to get wind of the events.
Sonnen seems to be taking the change in stride and discussed his new match up.
“Now as for myself, I still will participate in the pay-per-view on July 5, but the stakes are up,” he said. “I am now fighting in a No. 1 contender’s match, the winner of my bout will take on the winner of Chris Weidman and Lyoto Machida, my opponent will be Vitor Belfort.
“Vitor and I are both middleweights, 185-pound division, and that is the contendership that’s on the line. Vitor’s the No. 1 contender, he’s putting that title on the line against me. Consider it a catchweight that we will be taking place at 205 pounds.”
This means the best in the 185 lb division will be on full display at UFC 175.
Here is a tentative UFC 175 as it stands currently:
- Champ Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida – for middleweight title
- Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis – for women’s bantamweight title
- Vitor Belfort vs. Chael Sonnen
- Alex Caceres vs. Urijah Faber
- Matt Mitrione vs. Stefan Struve
- Uriah Hall vs. Thiago “Marreta” Santos
- Chris Camozzi vs. Bruno Santos
- Guilherme Vasconcelos vs. Luke Zachrich
- Ildemar Alcantara vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio