Las Vegas, NV – UFC bantamweight contender Rob Font went through adversity on his way to a matchup with former featherweight champion Jose Aldo.
Font (19-4) had just beaten former 135-pound champion Cody Garbrandt when the trouble began.
“It sucked, I went from obviously beating Cody Garbrandt. Going through that high and getting a text from Jeff saying ‘Hey we need to talk’,” Font said.
“They’re like ‘Listen you popped for uh (4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid)’. I’m like, ‘I don’t even know what that is break it down.’ And then basically we had to go around and collect or put together what I ate that week leading up to the fight, the fight week. The products I was taking and all that. Ended up being all the cosmetic I was taking from the lotions to shampoo and even the sunscreen. Once we figured that out it was alright. We got the proof then we’ve got to wait for the hearing. That happened.”
USADA did clear Font once it was determined that he had not intentionally digested any performance enhancing drugs. Unfortunately, that was not the last bit of adversity for Font.
“At the same time we scheduled a vacation to Texas. So we got through the hearing and I was like ‘Cool’. Now we know that it’s not going to be a year and 6 months we knew where we were at. We went out and had some fun in Texas and then ended up catching COVID. So obviously we’re in quarantine for two weeks. Finally get done with that and I get the call ‘Hey you want to go to Dubai to fight Petr for the belt,” Font described. He had a tough decision to make coming off both the USADA process and recovering from COVID.
“Oh come on man. We tried it out played around with a couple sessions, wasn’t feeling right. It was more like I’m trying to figure out everything just to get to the fight instead of just focus on winning the fight. It felt rushed, I think.”
Once Font turned the fight down the UFC quickly offered him another bout for December 4th.
“After saying no it sucked for like maybe two or three days and boom I get the call. Jose Aldo.”
Going through all of that and ending up with a bout against one of the greatest fighters to ever grace the octagon turned out to be the light at the end of a long tunnel for Rob Font.
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