Yesterday afternoon it was reported by Polish website MMARocks.pl that Bellator light heavyweight champion Attila Vegh was not injured (as originally claimed by Bellator), which was the catalyst for the organization to book an interim title fight between recent tournament winners Muhammed Lawal and Emanuel Newton for the upcoming PPV in November.
In a statement released to MMA Fighting, Bellator challenged the report, saying that neither the translation of the interview from Slovak to English nor the information was accurate. They even attached a medical report in the below quote:
Numerous websites yesterday posted a story regarding Attila Vegh and statements he allegedly made to a reporter while in Poland. The interview was done in Slovakian, through a reporter speaking Polish, and a number of US websites published the story with inaccurate and misleading information.
Please see the attached medical report to this email, a doctor’s report provided to Bellator by Attila’s doctor detailing his injury and instructing him to do nothing for 2 months.
Additionally, Attila has confirmed that his statements were not translated correctly and were not accurate. Attila was fully aware that Bellator made numerous attempts to schedule his world title defense vs. Emmanuel Newton, and that his injury prevented that bout from occurring and that Bellator was going to schedule an interim world title fight because of the delays.
Attila will be facing the winner of the Newton vs. Mo Interim World Title fight in early 2014.
With regards to the medical report, there are three sticking points that absolutely need to be addressed by Bellator:
1.) The examination date is listed as April 15th, therefore the doctor instructing him “to do nothing for 2 months” means that the 6-8 weeks duration of treatment would’ve ended on June 15th at the latest.
2.) The doctor also says “he can’t fight in the tournament”. Vegh won the LHW title on February 28th, so there is no way that he could’ve possibly been involved in a tournament when he’s already the champion. Also note that the examination date came only 2.5 weeks after Emanuel Newton won Bellator’s season 8 tournament.
3.) The report does not detail anything related to a shoulder injury. Bellator’s original press release (announcing King Mo/Newton 2) on August 15th stated that Vegh had injured his shoulder. The doctor’s report says that Vegh had a hematoma under the right side of his chest caused by a kick from his training partner.
Basically, this statement did anything but clarify the situation. In fact, it only muddled it even further. Expect more twists and turns to come from this wild story in Bellator.
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