Nevada and the UFC roll the dice on outlaw fighter Yvel

[Clark Kent]

01-01-2010 12:30 PM:Who saw this one coming? In 2007, Nevada told Gilbert Yvel he was unfit to earn a license to fight in the state. You have to be pretty awful or just old to be denied a license. But Yvel made his own bed with a series of outrageous incidents early in his fight career. The Dutch-born fighter punched out a referee. He also eye-gouged Don Frye and bit another opponent. Now he's fighting on the world's biggest stage for the UFC tomorrow night in Las Vegas? Will Yvel lose it -- embarrassing the promotion, the country's most trusted athletic commission and the UFC? UFC president Dana White says he did his homework.

"It was me that made the decision to sign him," said White. "I have a long relationship with (trainer) John Lewis ... John's been trying to get him in the UFC now for quite a while. So it wasn't just 'Hey let's just throw Gilbert Yvel back in here.' We talked to him, took some time and he assured me that he's going to be an absolute professional.

"Listen you guys know how I am. We all make mistakes. We'll see if he learned from them."

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Yvel told Cagewriter he didn't want address the incidents specifically and that he's a different person after five years of maturity (2:31 mark):

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Yvel compared his bad reputation to what Tiger Woods is going through:

"He made a mistake but he's a really famous person and everybody looks at them. So it's like blown up and everybody sees it. But if my neighbor will cheat on his wife, nobody will know," Yvel told Neil Davidson from the Canadian Press. "So I was in the picture (spotlight) and I did something really stupid ... I promise that will never happen again."

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Yvel said the UFC didn't have a lengthy talk with him because he knows he needs to control himself or his career could be over. His U.S. trial run went well back in late January of 2009. Yvel lost at Affliction 2 against Josh Barnett but never lost his cool.

The UFC is also taking a huge risk in this fight by throwing Junior Dos Santos (9-1, 3-0 UFC) in the cage with Yvel (36-13, 31 KOs). Dos Santos, 25, is on the verge of moving into the heavyweight division's title chase. A loss to Yvel throws him way off course.

Dana White quotes via Neil Davidson of the Canadian Press



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Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.