UFC president Dana White orders Mark Hunt to Las Vegas for more testing after brain injury revelations

Mark Hunt. Photosport

Mark Hunt must fly to Las Vegas and have his brain assessed by chief UFC medical adviser Dr Jeffrey Davidson if he is to ever fight again.

As revealed by The Daily Telegraph, Hunt has been banned from headlining the upcoming UFC Sydney card after using a website article to reveal he was suffering symptoms linked to brain injury.

Since the contentious Players Voice piece was released, the cult heavyweight has seen two Australian brain specialists who, he insists, have declared him fit to fight.

Yet given the serious nature of his claims, UFC president Dana White now wants Hunt flown Stateside to be assessed by his fight company's own physician.

Head of Emergency at Valley Hospital, Las Vegas, Dr Davidson was recently at the forefront of treating those involved in the shooting massacre which tragically claimed 58 lives, injured 500 more and caused global headlines.

A practitioner for over 20 years, he also has direct access to brain specialists from the Cleveland Clinic, with the UFC recently donating $1 million to its Lou Ruvo Centre for Brain Health in Las Vegas.

Already, the Hunt situation has caused plenty of attention in America, with retired women's bantamweight champ Miesha Tate urging the tattooed Sydneysider to retire.

Speaking on Sirius XM radio, Tate said: "I think Mark Hunt deserves to be a part of his children's lives ... not 'punchy' which is a road he's headed down if he continues to take this kind of punishment.

"The amount of damage that man has sustained to his brain is astronomical.

"He's even admitted having symptoms - it's this early onset symptoms that are just gonna get worse. He's too tough for his own good."

Speaking with Players Voice last month, Hunt suggested his body was "f ... ed".

"Sometimes I don't sleep well," wrote the fighter, now 43. "You can hear me starting to stutter and slur my words. My memory is not that good anymore.

"I'll forget something I did yesterday but I can remember the s*** I did years and years ago. That's just the price I've paid - the price of being a fighter.

"But I've fought a lot of drug cheats and copped a lot of punishment from guys who were cheating and that's not right."

Understandably, UFC officials were concerned by the revelations.

As a result, the No. 5 ranked heavyweight says he undertook - and passed - over four hours of assessment with two Sydney specialists to prove himself right to headline against Polish heavyweight Marcin Tybura on November 19.

One of the practitioners said to have cleared Hunt is Dr Roy Sugarman, who did not respond to interview requests.