Dana White Claims Vitor Belfort Turned Down Replacement Fights
It was announced over the weekend that middleweight star Uriah Hall, who was set to fight Vitor Belfort in a middleweight bout at UFC St. Louis, wouldn’t be weighing for the scheduled bout.
Belfort did make weight at 186 pounds for what was supposed to be his retirement fight.
UFC President Dana White revealed during the post-fight show on FOX Sports 1 on Sunday night that the promotion offered Belfort a replacement fight at this event as well as a fight at UFC 220 this Saturday night in Boston. Belfort turned down both fights.
“This thing went down, we worked quickly and we got Vitor a fight,” White said (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “He could have fought tonight, he chose not to. We got him a fight in Boston. He chose not to fight in Boston. He chose not to fight then. I don’t know who the opponents were, but they told him we got him two fights.”
It’s been well documented that Hall had a seizure as a result of a bad weight cut that ultimately led to him being hospitalized until Sunday evening.
Although White did not disclose the opponents that they offered the MMA Legend, Belfort has gone on record by stating that he would like to have a fight with former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping in London on March 17.
It should be noted that it appears that fight is not going to happen as Bisping has made it known that he has no interest in fighting Belfort.
“When I get back to Vegas and get back in the office, I will obviously talk to Vitor, I’ll talk to Mike,” White said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Belfort shared this message on his official Instagram account asking the promotion for his money due to him doing all the training and preparation and was able to weigh-in successfully.
“First of all I would just like to say THANK YOU! Thank you all! Everyone who accompanies me, cheers for me and my family! But I especially want to make a special thanks to the columnist @ chicobarney for the subject that he published on the site uol.com.br Reading the q he wrote reminded me of every moment described in the text. The criticisms, my feelings, dreams, ideas etc … In a moment like hj, in which the now does not make much sense to me … Difficult to understand after so much dedication and sacrifice.
From having psychologically prepared myself to retire from a sport that I basically helped to create … and that simply did not happen … I have conflicting feelings about what happened … But as I said, reading the story I also remembered q much of what I did, many of the ideas and much of what I said years ago, did not make any sense to me. I just believed that it would work … Q Vale Tudo at the time would become a sport.
That we fighters, we were not barbarians digging up and yes athletes. That we had the potential to be “a company” to represent brands and values. None of this made much sense at the time, but inside my heart, it always did … My farewell fight did not take place as I had planned, but in my heart I know somehow up there, EVERYTHING that will make sense. Again, as I have always done and often been ridiculed for it. I give my life in the hands of my Father who is in heaven.
Because of him always came my peace … Bjo in the hearts of all vcs. Now a message to @ufc. I’m waiting for my pgto @ufc after all, I did what had to be done (I trained, I was present in the week of the fight, I hit my weight ….) Where’s the respect !?”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd84_miFrnZ/?taken-by=vitorbelfort
