Luke Rockhold Thanks Vitor Belfort, Vows To Punish Him

After finishing former middleweight champion Chris Weidman in the co-main event of last weekend’s (December 12, 2015) UFC 194 from Las Vegas, Nevada, former Strikeforce champion and current UFC boss Luke Rockhold made it clear that he would like to take on Vitor “The Phenom” Belfort next.

Belfort is the only man to hand Rockhold a loss inside of the Octagon, but it came during “The Phenom’s” testosterone-replacement-therapy (TRT) infused reign of terror during 2013, and has left a bad taste in Rockhold’s mouth ever since.

Recently speaking on The Fighter & The Kid Podcast, Rockhold actually thanked Belfort for the loss, as it’s helped him grow tremendously. At the end of the day, however, the 185-pound champion warned the ageing Brazilian:

“All the weight came on my shoulders at that time, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. If you look at how I carried myself after that fight and how much better I’ve gotten from that, I was a kid then and I matured so much more in and outside the cage. That fight was everything to me. I’m so thankful I got kicked in the head. Thank you (Belfort), thank you but I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

Rockhold remains hung up on Belfort’s past, however, noting that the “Phenom” needs to be punished:

“It’s unbelievable the stuff he gets away with. He should be prosecuted at a certain level, like he could potentially have been the guy to take (Michael) Bisping’s eye,” Rockhold said, referring to another one of Belfort’s brutal knockouts. “Stuff like that, it’s just unreal how he can get away with it and he needs to be punished and I’m the man to do it.”

While Belfort is indeed coming off of a knockout win over yet another ageing veteran in Dan Henderson, it’s hard to believe that he’d be deserving of a title shot at this point.

However, crazier things have happened, and Rockhold vs. Belfort is a huge rivalry.

Will the champion ever get his revenge?