As noted on Friday, UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman has pulled out of his scheduled title defense against Vitor Belfort at next month’s UFC 184 pay-per-view.
As a result, the Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano fight for the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship has been moved to the UFC 184 main event, and the Holly Holm vs. Raquel Pennington bout will now serve as the pay-per-view co-main event.
UFC wanted Belfort to remain on the card, offering him an interim UFC Middleweight title fight against the number three ranked UFC Middleweight contender Lyoto Machida, a fight that Machida accepted, but Belfort turned down.
Belfort’s jiu-jitsu coach Gilbert Burns explained to Brazilian MMA media outlet TATAME that his fighter would not have enough time to adequately prepare for the southpaw Machida.
“We don’t think that is fair with Vitor [to] fight with a guy with such [a] different style and with nothing to lose,” said Burns. “He has been training for more than six months to fight an orthodox wrestler. Now he would have less than a month to prepare for a southpaw. I was the first one to say ‘no.'”
While Belfort isn’t interested in an interim title match against Machida, Burns says there are other fighters in the division that he would be comfortable matching Belfort up against.
“I think that a fight against Yoel Romero, Ronaldo Souza, Luke Rockhold or Mark Munoz wouldn’t affect the training so much,” said Burns “But against Machida it would be all different.”
When the news surfaced regarding Weidman’s injury, Belfort immediately took to social media, posting the following tweet on his official Twitter account:
As you already know unfortunately my opponent was injured again.
The focus is the same: TO FIGHT AGAINST WEIDMAN FOR THE MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE!
— Vitor Belfort (@vitorbelfort) January 31, 2015
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