 After victory over Anderson, Hess withdrew from the tournament with a hand injury.After his appearance in the UFC, Hess struggled to find another fight, despite publicly challenging dominant early UFC competitor Royce Gracie.Hess believes that this is because he was blacklisted by UFC promoter Art Davie After an attempt to gain public support for a return to the UFC via opinions published in "Inside Kung Fu" magazine Hess fought Vitor Belfort at "SB 2-SuperBrawl 2", where he lost by KO in 12 seconds.