Rest easy, Mr. "Count."
Rumors spread last week that top Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight contender Vitor Belfort had failed his drug test following a second-round technical knockout win over Michael Bisping at UFC on FX 7 last month in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
UFC President Dana White confirms there was some dirty pee-pee, but says "The Phenom" was not to blame.
"Something was wrong. Whenever something is wrong or weird, [the samples] get retested and usually it's not a good thing. It (expletive) was not Vitor Belfort. Yet right now I bet if you talked to 100 people, 100 people will tell you that Vitor Belfort failed his drug test in Brazil. That's (expletive). That's crazy."
That should come as a relief for Bisping, who expressed his concern last week (read it here) over what was possibly a tainted victory. The good news is, the Brazilian played by the rules. The bad news is, the Brit is still at the back of the 185-pound line.
For now.
"The Count," 1-2 over his last three bouts, will try to resurrect his title run at the expense of Alan Belcher in the co-main event of UFC 159: "Jones vs. Sonnen," which takes place on April 27 in Newark, NJ. Belfort, meanwhile, is struggling to figure out where he wants to go from here (see why here).
That leaves us with the guessing game. Which one of these fighters returned an "irregular" result? The promotion is expected to make an official announcement later today.
Stay tuned.