Breaking! Paulo Filho is still Paulo Filho (Update)

When Bellator tapped former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho to fight middleweight champion Hector Lombard for a "super fight" the announcement was met with a nice round of golf applause as there was this one itsy bitsy detail that could derail the whole thing -- Paulo Filho was involved.

Filho has had a recent history of self-immolating in ways that Paul Daley cringe. From missing weight by seven pounds before his title defense with Chael Sonnen due to what WKR can only assume was a binge eating session of doughnuts dipped in baconnaise; to withdrawing from fights for inexplicable reasons, the guy who many saw as a potential challenger to Anderson Silva has turned into Josh Hamilton. Well, except the drug use and whole redemption thing (yet). That's why fans looked at the potential Lombard-Filho fight with such trepidation

Now it appears that their skepticism was well placed

Bellator officials have confirmed the rumor that Paulo Filho will not fight Hector Lombard and that Jay Silva (5-3) will step in to fight the Bellator middleweight champion. 

It was just a few days ago that Cagepotato reported that Filho would not be able to fight due to a "clerical" error though people at Bellator did their best BP "all is well" impersonation after the initial report of trouble.

So much for the second "super" fight.

Update: Paulo Filho talked to Tatame.com about failing to be apart of Bellator XVIII 

"Honestly, I don't know. I think maybe people knew I was in a good shape, strong, so they got scared... 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", said Filho. With the third absence in last than a year, the image of the athlete keeps getting tarnished internationally. 

Tarnished? Can you say understatement?

"My biggest concern is that people start to think that my absences are because of other things better than from what it actually is... 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... 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."

Wait a second Paulo Filho is concerned that fans are starting to see a pattern of flakiness that requires Selsun Blue Ultra strength? 

How refreshing to see that Filho does have the tiniest morsel of introspective analysis. 

SBN coverage of Bellator XVIII