After knocking out Mark Munoz at this past weekend’s UFC Fight Night 30, Lyoto Machida has his eyes set on his next opponent in the UFC’s middleweight division.
Following the bout, Machida discussed who he would like to fight next in the division in hopes of upping his rank, and tells MMAFighting.com it’s none other than “The Phenom” Vitor Belfort:
“Vitor Belfort is the best option for me right now. I want to fight him. It would be the best fight for me right now because he’s well ranked in the middleweight division. No hard feelings, I’m thinking what’s best for my career and where I can get with a win. Even if Vitor loses to Dan Henderson, I’d want to fight him in our weight class.”
As for a bout with UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva, it’s possible but not something he wants to think about right now:
“A win over Vitor Belfort puts me in front of everybody in the rankings, but let’s see what happens. It’s too soon to talk about it because Anderson Silva is too far away from me right now. Even if he wins, I don’t know for how long he will want to keep fighting. I haven’t talked to him for a long time. I don’t know how it’s going to work, we have the same managers. I rather not to talk about it now. When we get there, we’ll figure it out.”
