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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The hammer fell on Wanderlei Silva today, as the Nevada Athletic Commission administered a lifetime ban and fined him $70,000 for skipping out on a random drug test in May ahead of UFC 175.
While Silva's attorney, Ross Goodman, filed a motion to dismiss with an argument that they didn't hold jurisdiction over Silva, that motion was immediately denied, and the complaint went ahead.
The commission members treated skipping out on a test as a greater sin than failing one, and decided to throw the harshest penalty possible at the longtime veteran. This comes a week after Silva himself retired, blaming the UFC for trying to turn his fans on him.
Because they didn't buy his retirement, and because they wanted to "send a message," they opted for the lifetime ban, and the fine, which represented 30% of his last purse received in Las Vegas.
Though this brings an end to his saga with the commission, it's not the last word, as Goodman plans to appeal this ruling to the district court in Nevada.
Penick's Analysis: It's farcical that they threw the book at Silva while they were offering Chael Sonnen a job in July. Obviously, a harsh punishment was going to come regardless, but when no fine came to Sonnen for testing positive for just about everything, while Silva didn't actually fail a test, it's just laughable. Silva was absolutely in the wrong, of course, and Goodman's arguments have been ridiculous to suggest that there was no jurisdiction when Silva had already appeared in media events for UFC 175. However, with the precedents they set with Sonnen and Vitor Belfort this summer, the commission comes off as massively inept at best.
[Wanderlei Silva art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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