NSAC Stands By Decision To Let Kevin Lee Fight At UFC 216

Not surprisingly, the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) won’t give any weight to the notion that UFC lightweight Kevin Lee, who barely made weight and apparently had a significant staph infection heading into his interim title bout with Tony Ferguson at last night’s UFC 216 from Las Vegas, maybe shouldn’t have been allowed to fight.

After a harrowing scene at the UFC 216 early weigh-ins on Friday where “The Motown Phenom” missed weight on his first attempt before making it at the last minute after he was given one hour to lose a pound, Octagon commentator Joe Rogan immediately noticed that Lee had a large staph infection on his chest when he got into the cage to fight “El Cucuy.”””

The ailment almost certainly played into his difficult weight cut, and it may have also caused him to tire earlier than normal as it drained his body. Indeed he faded a bit in the third round after an impressive start to the interim title fight, ultimately losing to a Ferguson triangle choke at the end of that frame.

But NSAC executive director Bob Bennett stood by the commission’s decision to let Lee fight, telling MMA Fighting today that two of his doctors deemed him medically able to compete:

“My lead ringside physician found Lee medically fit to fight,” Bennett said. “He was examined by our lead ringside physician, along with another ringside physician. Both felt he was medically fit to fight.”

As for the staph infection, Lee admitted that he tried to hide it for as long as possible because after so many high-profile bouts had fallen through at the last minute for the UFC recently, he was motivated to show up and fight in his:

“I tried my best to hide it,” Lee said.“You know, it’s a big event, a lot has been happening with the UFC, these last couple events and I wasn’t going to let nobody down. I worked my whole life for this, it was like a culmination of things. But I’m not going to let this stop me.”

Lee revealed to Rogan in his post-fight interview that he should most likely have been on antibiotics in the days before UFC 216, Yet even though the weight cut ended up brutally tiring on him, he proclaimed was going to do whatever it took to make weight for his hyped bout with Ferguson at the post-fight presser:

“It was what it was,” Lee said. “I was going to make the weight, even if I had to cut my foot off or something. I said it before, it damn near killed me and I had to do what I had to do. I had a job to do, I’m a professional and I’m going to come out here no matter how bad it hurts. I’m going to come out here and I feel like I put my best performance on tonight, but by the third round it was too much for me.”

Based on the severity of the weight cut, ‘The Motown Phenom’ teased a move up to welterweight for future bouts, something that has proved fruitful for other contenders who have stopped depleting their bodies to the limit in order to gain a size advantage.

But if you ask the NSAC, there wasn’t anything wrong that should have raised suspicion – even if he fought another human with an obvious infection. Should the commission have thought longer about allowing him to compete?