Yes, Vitor Belfort is awesome – which is kind of the problem

I’m not sure when it hit me, but I think it was somewhere around the same time that Vitor Belfort lifted Dan Henderson off his feet with an uppercut.

Or maybe it was a few moments later, when Belfort dropped Hendo with a kick upside the head – a move that’s quickly becoming the signature assault of the “new” Belfort, who, as we were later reminded by UFC President Dana White, is “f—ing awesome.”

And that’s pretty much what occurred to me as I was watching Belfort add another victim to his highlight reel at UFC Fight Night 32 at Goiania Arena in Goiania, Goias, Brazil. He is awesome. He might even be the most exciting fighter currently on the UFC roster. His late-career resurgence should be the story of the year. At 36, he’s finally living up to the full potential of his teenage “phenom” years, back when he would enter the octagon above a graphic on the TV screen declaring he had “no known weaknesses.”

Now Belfort has finally become the fighter he was always supposed to be, and it’s amazing to see. It’s also fraught with so many tough questions about doping and fairness and regulation that it’s almost impossible to just sit back and enjoy it without feeling like you’re lying to yourself.

That’s what really sucks about what testosterone “replacement therapy” has done to this sport. We can’t just let the fights speak for themselves anymore. Not unless we want to be the willfully ignorant marks who refuse to acknowledge what’s right in front of us for fear that it might ruin our fun. Gee whiz, I ain’t no fancy scientist or nothin’. I just want to see the one feller knock out the other feller.

And yes, I already know what the emails and tweets will say once this column goes live. I’ll hear from people who want to know why I’m being such a “hater.” They’ll tell me that Belfort is entertaining millions of fans with his fights, and that testosterone won’t teach you to throw a kick or an uppercut. They’ll want to know why I don’t focus on Henderson, who’s been on testosterone for years, or Chael Sonnen, who helped thrust terms like “testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio” into the general MMA consciousness after his first fight with Anderson Silva.

Why single out poor, poor Vitor? He isn’t abusing this stuff, or so we’re told. He’s just trying to get his levels into the “normal” range. The UFC tests the hell out of him, too, or so it says. And since it says nothing else on the matter, what can we assume except that he’s always passed with staggeringly normal results? Why can’t we just let it go?

The answer is, I can’t because I can’t. Because when I watch this man – who I’m told suffers from a naturally occurring testosterone deficiency so severe that medical intervention is absolutely necessary – stroll into the cage looking like a power-lifter right before he knocks another man unconscious, I just can’t buy it. Over the last couple years, I’ve interviewed doctors and endocrinologists and anti-doping experts who all say the same thing about this supposed low testosterone scourge in MMA, and that thing is, more or less, “no way.”

Only, when they say it, it’s with a mixture of contempt and pity. As in, “No way people in your sport actually believe this, right?”

But we do. Oh boy, do we ever. Belfort says he needs synthetic testosterone, and that his need has nothing to do with past steroid use (like the kind he was busted for after his first fight with Henderson), and hey, we love watching this guy knock people out, so we tell ourselves it’s fine. After all, we aren’t doctors. And the UFC tests him. And the commission in Brazil signed off on it. And he’ll fight in the U.S. again eventually, but he’s just so damn popular down in Brazil. And in case you didn’t hear that excuse the first time, UFC employees will repeat it over and over again until it becomes fact. And besides, all this TRT talk is getting old, man.

I agree, at least on that last one. It is getting old. I’m sure the people who are benefitting from it would really love if we lost interest. Besides, it doesn’t teach you technique, they say. It’s no substitute for hard work in the gym.

If you follow that logic to its inevitable conclusion, you can no longer object to any performance-enhancing substance in any sport. Steroids won’t teach you how to hit a baseball, either. As we’ve seen in that sport, however, if you already know how to hit a baseball, those same steroids don’t exactly hurt your chances. At least in baseball nobody’s brain gets damaged as a result of doping-related success.

That brings us back to Belfort and Henderson, two fighters who both took advantage of synthetic testosterone before this fight. The TRT apologists will tell us that this constitutes a level playing field. They’ll also tell us that the fact that Belfort and Henderson didn’t simultaneously smash each with perfectly timed double knockout blows is proof that Belfort is winning because he’s a great fighter, and not because he has a synthetic edge.

And that’s the thing about Belfort. He is a great fighter. He might even prove to be the best middleweight in the world, which is also why he gets such a disproportionately large share of the TRT criticism (that and the failed steroid test back in 2006). He tells us he can’t do without TRT, but also says it isn’t in any way responsible for the incredible success which, in turn, makes it impossible not to wonder about this TRT stuff.

When Henderson loses a split decision or Sonnen chokes out a fading Mauricio Rua, it’s easier to tell ourselves that it’s not such a big deal. See? It didn’t turn them into superhumans, therefore it must be fine.

That’s crap, of course, but it works to soothe the conscience. It doesn’t scream out to you like Belfort’s reign of terror does. It doesn’t force you to confront these uncomfortable questions every time he starches another opponent and then jumps up on the cage, flexing and screaming, directing the spotlight yet again to the “new” Belfort. The “f—ing awesome” Belfort. The one who would be so much fun to watch if only you didn’t have to wonder how he got there.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 32, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.