There were a lot of abrupt changes in UFC land yesterday, as the state of Nevada banned TRT usage in combat sports and Vitor Belfort was unceremoniously pulled from his fight with Chris Weidman, being replaced by Lyoto Machida. Anton Tabuena of BloodyElbow is in Macau where the UFC will be holding a Fight Pass event this weekend and he spoke with Stefan Struve, Mark Hunt and Kenny Florian. As always, Mark Hunt is a boss. [source]
Stefan Struve: Perfect. Perfect. It was just a free pass on cheating. All cheaters, if caught using performance enhancing drugs I think should be fired, and I don’t think they should ever be allowed to enter the organization again. I think it’s the way it should be done, and it should be a clean sport.
The (Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort switch is) surprising. If all this happened in one day, then that’s surprising. That was really quick, it’s crazy.
Mark Hunt: I was just told about it. I don’t really care. I don’t really care about it.
Kenny Florian: I think it’s a great step forward for the sport. I think it was a difficult thing because while I think there are some people that may need it, I think that some people were probably really taking advantage of the ability to use TRT for competition. I think if you need to use it, then it’s fine, but for fighting it’s a completely different deal. I was glad to see that, and I was glad to see the UFC support the decision.