Sherdog’s Top 10: PED Busts

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8. Vitor Belfort
Pride 32 “The Real Deal”
Pride 32, the promotion’s first attempt to crack the American market, was the nightmare scenario for performance-enhancing drug usage. Kevin Randleman, Pawel Nastula and former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight titleholder and UFC 12 heavyweight tournament winner Belfort all tested positive for banned substances, and it is to the last of these that we now turn.

Belfort had left the UFC in 1998 for a stint in Pride Fighting Championships, which he followed with a return to the UFC that ended in 2005. He went back to Pride for a single bout and bounced around to Strikeforce and Cage Rage before returning to the Japanese promotion for Pride 32, where he dropped an uninspired decision to two-division standout Dan Henderson. He was taken down five times, controlled on the ground and, on the whole, was soundly beaten.

Things got even worse after the fight, as his urine sample came back positive for 4-Hydroxytestosterone, a banned substance Belfort claimed to have obtained through a legal, over-the-counter supplement called Tribustak. Although Belfort made an impassioned defense in front of the commission, it ultimately decided to fine him $10,000 and suspend him for nine months. Belfort failed to obey the commission’s suspension, fighting in England’s Cage Rage promotion a mere five months after the commission hearing.

Belfort’s positive test would become a point of contention years later, as many decried his admitted use of testosterone replacement therapy as an unfair advantage that was intended to rectify a physical deficiency caused by his abuse of PEDs.

Number 7 » As many other athletes have done, she blamed a tainted supplement she was using to help her cut weight, but the California State Athletic Commission was not swayed. It suspended her for a year and fined her $2,500, and Strikeforce stripped her title.