It looks like Vitor Belfort has some more gas in his tank after all. Following a one sided knockout at the fists of up and coming monster Kelvin Gastelum, Belfort declared his intent to retire after his UFC 212 fight against Nate Marquardt. But his training camp at TriStar Gym in Montreal has gone so phenomenally that the old Vitor is feeling like a new Vitor all over again, and he now wants to keep fighting.
Even though he’s feeling young and fresh enough to pull off the ridiculous sunglasses you see in the video above, he’s not too interested in being fed to the next generation of UFC killers any more. Instead, he’s going back to his ‘UFC Legends League’ idea and suggesting he fight Chuck Liddell again.
“Liddell is very interesting, not just for me but for the fans,” Belfort told MMA Fighting. “I think about the legend league, I think the UFC should do it and I think that would be a good start. Chuck is a legend, we fought in the past. I think I won that fight but they gave it to him. Back in the days he was managed by the owners of the UFC and Dana. Today is totally different.”
“I see it as one of the options, the many options the UFC has to pursue it. We have so many legends in the UFC and so many things could happen in the future.”
I gotta admit, Chuck Liddell vs. Vitor Belfort is a fight that makes me want to break out the ‘Just Bleed’ body paint. And Chuck has been in the gym a suspicious amount since new owners WME-IMG took him off the UFC payroll (the only real part of his job: not coming out of retirement). If the Iceman is planning on returning for a fight, why not one against a fellow aging legend in Vitor Belfort?
But maybe Vitor should remove that singular fight from the umbrella of an entire Legends League, which sounds good on paper but always results in terrible fights when Bellator does it with guys like Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie. We don’t need that kind of stuff in the UFC. But Belfort vs. Liddell? Sign us up for that.
