Filho denies drug addiction claims

Former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho has denied claims that he is struggling with drug addiction again.

Rumors have suggested Filho is struggling with drug problems again following his withdrawal from his fight with Hector Lombard on May13th at Bellator.

Filho has pulled out of fights at DREAM 12, Bitetti and now Bellator in the last six months.

“My biggest concern is that people start to think that my absences are because of other things better than from what it actually is,” Filho told Tatame.

“I didn’t fight on Bitetti Combat for reasons between me and the organization and it came out on Sherdog that I was doing drugs and medicines once again. I fear that people actually believes that,” he added.

“I was training hard, working on my boxing with Distak, conditioning, running on the beach, doing jiu jitsu. It was everything going pretty good, but there’s always something to get in the way… Honestly, I don’t know. I think maybe people knew I was in a good shape, strong, so they got scared,” Filho said.

“In fact, I’ve been informed it was a mistake of the event, which didn’t gave me the letter so I could take it to the council. Things were left to be solved at the last minute, unfortunately I won’t fight.”