Nevada commission lays the hammer on Wanderlei Silva; court fight likely

LAS VEGAS -- This is the craziness of the justice system in the fight game:

• Wanderlei Silva attended a press conference in Las Vegas on May 23 to announce he'd fight Chael Sonnen at UFC 175 on July 5.

• Later that day, a collector for the Nevada Athletic Commission showed up at Silva's local gym and demanded a blood and urine sample.

• Silva not only declined to be tested, he hopped a plane and flew to Brazil.

• He appeared at a disciplinary hearing in June and admitted he had a banned diuretic in his system.

• Silva blew off the continuation of his disciplinary hearing on Tuesday and not only didn't attend in person, he didn't bother to dial in on the telephone to participate.

Despite his absence Tuesday, he was given a lifetime ban and fined $70,000, 35 percent of what his purse woudl have been on July 5 had he fought, on a unanimous vote.

But his attorney, Ross Goodman, plans to sue to have the penalty vacated and the crazy thing is, he might be right.

"They have no jurisdiction," Goodman said. "They recognize they don't have jurisdiction and they did what was expected: They retaliated against Mr. Silva for calling them to the mat with respect to their lack of jurisdiction. They didn't ruling [on Silva's motion to dismiss]. The answer from the attorney general was weak, to say the best. It was based on nonsensical rules. It's very black and white that they don't have jurisdiction. It just reinforces their bias in this issue. We look forward to getting a transcript of this hearing, which was really a kangaroo court that made a mockery of any type of public forum or legitimate forum and appealing it like I said before to an unbiased judge."

At issue is the fact that Silva did not have a license to fight in Nevada at the time he was asked to give a test sample in May. There is no question he planned to fight because he appeared at the May 23 news conference and answered questions from the media.

It is common for fighters to not get their licenses to fight until a day or a couple of days before a fight. If all fighters are required to be licensed in order to be tested, then it would make doing random, unannounced drug tests virtually impossible.

The commission's only alternative would be to demand that promoters give them enough lead time so that fighters are licensed far in advance.

Commissioner Bill Brady was outraged during Silva's hearing and said that because fighters are routinely licensed so late, it will impact drug testing. Goodman, though, said it's the commission's problem.

"How is that Mr. Silva's fault?" Goodman said. "If there is a gap, they should do what any agency does, which is go to the legislature and amend the rules so that this issue doesn't happen again. But you can't as a byproduct exceed your statutory jurisdiction."

A judge will determine that, and Goodman appears to have solid ground. Nevada deputy attorney general Chris Eccles said the court has never overturned a disciplinary action against a fighter on the grounds that Goodman is arguing, but Goodman's argument is compelling.

Vitor Belfort was in a similar situation, but he complied with the commission because the UFC was offering him a fight.

Regardless of the outcome, Silva's long and storied fight career is almost certainly over, though he erupted in a profane rant on Tuesday to reporters in Brazil.

Silva last week released a video in which he retired where he blasted the UFC's treatment of him. He said he was forced to fight hurt, wasn't paid well and had other grievances.

But UFC president Dana White refuted much of Silva's rant in the video. Goodman said at the hearing that Silva was taking the diuretics because he had an injured hand, but White said the UFC had sent Silva to doctors to have an injury checked.

"Every fighter, even ones we have issues with, every one of the fighters, if they tell us they're hurt, the absolute first thing we do is send them to the doctor," White said. "He kept telling me, 'I can't fight, Boss. I can't fight, Boss. I'm hurt.' And so we had him checked. We sent him to Dr. D. (Jeff Davidson, an emergency room physician in Las Vegas who serves as the UFC's doctor) and Dr. D sent him to Dr. [Steve] Sanders (an orthopedist in Las Vegas). They both told us, 'There is nothing wrong with this guy.'

"Here's the thing: That video Wanderlei released was all misdirection. He wanted you to look over here so you wouldn't see what was going on over there. What he's doing now would be like if after all this happened with Ray Rice and he came out and said, 'Oh, the NFL is treating me so [expletive].' It's all bull [expletive]. He said we wanted him to fight too much and what did he fight? Not that much."

Silva fought nine times in the nearly seven full years since he joined the UFC and just four times in the last three years. He fought once in 2009, once in 2010, twice in 2011 and one time apiece in 2012 and 2013.

In the next 30 days, Goodman will file a motion in Clark County District Court to overturn the commission's decision. A judge well could rule that the commission didn't have the authority to suspend him for that.

But two things will keep him out of the cage, most likely: First, when he announced his retirement last week, the UFC froze his contract. If he unretires and wants to fight, he'd have to go through them.

And if the UFC somehow consented to that, one of its conditions would be the one it made to Belfort and that would be to get a Nevada license first. Then, the Nevada commission could suspend him as a result of his admissions made under oath that he took the banned diuretics.

It's a complicated case and the only thing that seems certain is that one way or another, Silva is going to pay a lot of money. He's either going to pay Goodman to keep fighting the case in court and get the $70,000 fine thrown out, or he's going to pay the fine. The state indicated it will go to collections to get the fine if he does not pay.

Neither option is very appealing.