The UFC 186 card scheduled for Montreal on April 25 has lost one of its feature bouts as the UFC announced that the welterweight bout between Hector Lombard and Rory MacDonald has been cancelled. Interestingly, no official reason for the cancellation was given at first, and Hector Lombard took to social media to say he had “no clue” why the fight was cancelled. Later, it was revealed that Lombard had failed a drug test around his UFC 182 appearance this past January 3rd.
No clue, really, Hector?
The positive test came back for N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT. Testing positive for a powerful hallucinogen would have been something new and different, and might have earned Lombard a call from Nick Diaz to hang out, but there is apparently a steroid that goes by “DMT” as well, putting yet another black eye on the UFC in a high-profile spot.
Remember, the winner of Lombard and MacDonald was set to be next in line for a welterweight title shot, so the alarming recent trend involving the likes of Anderson Silva and Lombard involves high level fighters. Considering allegations against Jon Jones and Diaz that do not include performance enhancers but are for illegal drugs, there’s been a recent wave of higher-tier UFC fighters starting to go down because of testing. Jones, Diaz and Silva are all big draws, and one is considered the best fighter today while another the best of all time. Lombard does not have the drawing power or UFC title pedigree, but he was a one fight away from a title shot.
Now, what does the UFC do with Rory MacDonald? The champion at welterweight, Robbie Lawler is taking some time off, but MacDonald could conceivably sit and wait for a title shot. That would be risky however, as Johny Hendricks is scheduled for a March 14 fight with Matt Browne. A big win by Hendricks would almost assure that the trilogy closing third fight with Lawler would be next. MacDonald needed a big performance in a fight with Lombard, and now he needs a real contender on the other side of the octagon.
Here is an interesting interview with Lombard threatening to beat up boxer Adrien Broner.
