Smart Move By Dana White Pursuing Vitor Belfort To Re-Join The UFC?
by Kelvin Hunt on Jun 23, 2009 10:00 AM EDT
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PrintObviously, if you watched the TUF 9 Finale this past weekend you saw Dana White speak about trying to bring Vitor Belfort back to the UFC. Dana White mentioned bringing in a middleweight fighter months ago that would 'blow peoples minds', so I'm assuming he was referring to Vitor Belfort. While he's been in the game for quite some time, he's always been some sort of enigma if you will. One fight he'll look unstoppable, and the next fight he'll look like the next mediocre fighter in the game. Now to Belfort's credit, the 8 losses he has on his record are to the very best in the world. I mean losing to the likes of Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Kazushi Sakuraba, and Dan Henderson is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, he's only been finished 3 times in his entire career, once by Alistair Overeem and twice by Randy Couture.
Vitor Belfort is coming off one of the biggest wins in his career in destroying Matt Lindland at Affliction 2. However, he's having his biggest fight to date coming up at Affliction 3 against another UFC veteran in Jorge Santiago. Santiago has been on an absolute tear himself, winning 9 fights in a row and finishing every one of those opponents. I'm sure that everything is depending on Belfort beating Santiago for this deal to go thru. I don't see Dana White bringing Belfort back to the UFC coming off a loss(a very real possibility that he could lose to Santiago).
I definitely don't think of Belfort as a 'mind blowing middleweight', but he could add some spark to the UFC middleweight division, provided he gets past Santiago. It's a big gamble though with Belfort, because you just don't know when the 'old Vitor' will decide to take a day off and not show up to fight. How do you feel about Belfort possibly re-joining the UFC roster? Also, are there any other fighters you would rather Dana White pursue opposed to Vitor Belfort?
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Vitor is iconic and connected to the “old school” — no one else from that era held up as well in the field of today’s competition, except maybe Randy.
Vitor at his best could beat anyone on the planet.
Vitor at his worst would lose to Chris Leben… still, he’s a fucking superstar in Brazil.
Bloody hell.
he held up well because he was 19 when he debuted. you tack on 13 years to that and hes only 32. still in his physical prime for another 2 years or so. meanwhile, coleman is 44 or so, randy almost 46, saku 40, severn is about 50, and so on. thats a huge boost to his ability to stick around.
by nigelzackit on Jun 23, 2009 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions
Sure, why not? I don’t see a reason for him not to pursue the best in the world, and Belfort is no exception. I did find it really funny though how he actually mentioned that on-air. To my knowledge White has never went out and said anything outright like that, let alone to a large audience like the TUF finale.. I wonder why he did it too, because now that Belfort (or rather his management) knows that the UFC wants him, he/they can demand more for his services.
I laughed really, REALLY hard when he did mention it though, not only because he’s got a fight for Affliction coming up, but also because he has no business challenging for the MW title.
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