Rothwell urges Belfort to own his mistakes, blasts 'coward' Silva
Ben Rothwell wants Vitor Belfort to own his mistakes.
In an attempt to avoid questions related to a Deadspin report that alleged he was allowed to fight at UFC 152 after failing a drug test for elevated testosterone, Belfort cancelled his interview with "The MMA Hour" on Monday.
No stranger to elevated testosterone levels, Rothwell was suspended for nine months for testing high following UFC 164. Instead of running from the issue, Rothwell accepted responsibility for the test failure despite being granted a TRT exemption prior to the bout. Rothwell was hoping Belfort would do the same.
"The difference is I want to address it, because I face my problems," Rothwell said Monday on The MMA Hour, according to MMAFighting.com's Shaun Al-Shatti. "That's it. I face my problems. I take them on. I take responsibility. And man, Vitor was awesome when I met him in July, how nice he was to me and all this stuff. It just really sucks to hear that. Come on, man. Be the warrior. Be the man and face this. It happened. There's nothing you can do about it. This is your responsibility. You went through this. This is yours. F--king own it. Just deal with it."
Rothwell compared Belfort to Anderson Silva, who, according to "Big Ben," tarnished his legacy when he tested positive for anabolic steroids before and after his bout with Nick Diaz at UFC 183, and then blamed the failed screening on a sexual enhancement serum.
"The running and stuff, I don't know, it doesn't look good," Rothwell said of Belfort. "Didn't he watch who could've been looked at as the GOAT, in Silva? I'm going to say it, Anderson Silva destroyed his legacy. Not because he got busted, but after the fact, him continually denying (everything), showing just what a coward he is. No respect from me whatsoever. To constantly be like, really dude? You were tested multiple times. You had these substances in your body. Like, who are you trying to lie to? You got busted. You're a cheat. You f--ked up. Royally. Why are you going to sit here and continue to say you didn't do it? It's a disgrace. And you're not a man. You're not a man. I don't care. You can throw some good punches and kicks, but inside as a person, you are gone. You're nothing.
"And I don't want to see Vitor take this (route)," Rothwell added. "Kind of running from it. He didn't deny anything. But avoiding this is almost just as bad. It's like, don't do that, man. Just deal with this. It's no big deal. You got a fight against Henderson. You can make everybody forget. You're getting there, you're testing now, you're clean, go in there and beat Henderson. Great, man, we'll move on from this. But like you said, it just kind of makes matters worse when people don't want to handle their business the right way."