Hunt cheated by other's doping

Talk about being the harbinger of controversy.

Three weeks ago in this column, I trumpeted the accomplishments of UFC's big Kiwi heavyweight Mark Hunt, who was moved up into the main event of UFC 200 to face man-mountain Brock Lesnar - the former heavyweight champion making a surprise comeback after five years in professional wrestling.

Lesnar and Hunt were replacing the Daniel Cormier vs Jon Jones light heavyweight scrap at the top of the highly anticipated card after Jones was caught by USADA for failing an out-of-competition drug test, which after this column appeared was confirmed accurate as Jones also failed the 'B' sample follow-up test.

"What a great shame that our big Kiwi athletes, born strong and then driven to succeed, must always have their accomplishments railroaded or overshadowed by the stigma of drug cheats," I said at the time.

"Is it any coincidence as UFC tightened up their drug rules and handed monitoring over to the independent USADA - the same guys who busted Lance Armstrong - that a Kiwi boy like Mark Hunt who just trains hard with his natural gifts, has a career now out-lasting more athletic, physically impressive specimens who have suddenly gone on losing streaks or been caught out on tests?"

Yet strangely, on the day of the show the Lesnar vs Hunt clash was moved out of the main event to the second-to-last bout behind a women's UFC championship match.

In a disappointment for his Australasian fans, Hunt could not unload enough with his famous heavy hands as the former amateur champion Lesnar took him down and had him grounded for most of the three rounds to win the decision.

Only days after the show, it was revealed by USADA that Lesnar had also failed not one, but two tests, one of them well before the fight and another on the very day.

Despite the prospect of a two year ban from the sport - which does Lesnar no harm as his comeback fight was always just a one-off before he returns to his day job in pro wrestling - as of this writing his fight purse of US$2.5 million and even his official ranking ahead of Hunt in the UFC Top 10 has been maintained.

A somewhat weak excuse of possible "asthma medication" is all which has come from his training camp, after Lesnar quite hypocritically had said previously that the disgraced Jones was "unprofessional", while then deflecting media inquiries about his own extraordinary physique with "I'm a white boy and I'm jacked - deal with it".

Both Jones and Lesnar have been busted for the use of hydroxy-clomiphene - more commonly known as a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), which is used by women in the treatment of ovulatory dysfunction in fertility treatment.

Why on earth do large male athletes need that? Because clomifene is commonly used by steroid users at the end of a cycle to help restore their body's natural production of testosterone. Basically it is a mask for doping.

Hunt, unsurprisingly, has lit up social media with f-bomb laden tirades straight outta South Auckland, especially at his employers the UFC - who by coincidence sold the company to private investors virtually the same weekend of UFC 200 for a whopping $4 billion.

It appears a potential scandal was hushed up until after that deal went through.

As the biggest game in town for Mixed Martial Arts, UFC has this uncomfortable habit of re-writing the rules as they see fit and Hunt, who at 42 is a lot closer to the end of his fighting career than the start, is now threatening legal action and calling for a fighter's union to be established.

Had Lesnar failed to make the 265kg weight limit for their bout - it could still have gone ahead with Hunt receiving a 20 per cent share of Lesnar's purse.

This is a traditional rule, inherited from boxing, to compensate the fighter at a disadvantage, and yet there is no remuneration for the fighter who goes full-contact with an individual later revealed to be a drug cheat?

"At the end of the day he out-wrestled me and put me down and won the fight. I have no problem with that," Hunt said.

"But if you did it by cheating, then you shouldn't get any praises or anything.

"I reached out to [promotor] Dana [White], I've asked what's going on. And you know, they're not doing a damn thing."

"And the sad thing about it, like I said, is I'm asking because this is not just a first offence. This is the third time I've had to [fight someone busted in a drug test]."

One of the more frustrating aspects for media when dealing with the UFC is that being a sole-charge, private company, they have never had to reveal in entirety just what each fighter makes from his bouts - specifically in terms of their share of the revenue generated by the big Pay-Per-View shows.

They are also known for their "locker-room bonuses" for fighters who have performed well on the night.

Given they are already that shady, and have yet to announced any monetary penalty on Lesnar, I'm thinking the least they can give Hunt, who has been clean for an entire 17-year career, is one of those under-the-table manilla envelopes.

Call it a generous employee bonus for "services rendered".

Otherwise, Lesnar has successfully swindled an improper system with no genetically-enhanced skin off his nose.