Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort Scratched from UFC 109
A middleweight championship bout between title-holder Anderson Silva and challenger Vitor Belfort slated for UFC 109 on February 6 in Las Vegas has been scratched from the card, according to MMAjunkie.
The matchup, originally targeted for January’s UFC 108, has been postponed again due to Silva’s slow recovery from elbow surgery, with “The Spider” now expected to be able to return to action in April.
Silva (25-4) has gone undefeated since early-2006, winning a record 10-straight UFC fights over the likes of Rich Franklin, Dan Henderson, and Nate Marquardt. He now returns to 185-pounds after moving up to light heavyweight in August, where he recorded a first-round knockout of Forrest Griffin.
Belfort (19-8), the UFC 12 heavyweight tournament winner and former light heavyweight champion, returned to the UFC in September with a first-round knockout of Rich Franklin at UFC 103. “The Phenom” has now won five-straight, including previous back-to-back knockouts of Terry Martin and Matt Lindland in Affliction.
Silva-Belfort is now tentatively scheduled to headline UFC 112 in April, with an exact date and location for the card to-be-determined.
UFC 109 now features Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman, Frank Trigg vs. Matt Serra, Nate Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen, and Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller.
For the latest UFC news and UFC rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Tags: Anderson Silva, Vitor Belfort
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i know this was going to happen so it looks like the fight will take place at ufc 112 (which just so happens to be 100 ufc ppv since belfort had debut) but either way i think it’ll be a stand up war with some of the best stricking the ufc has ever seen anderson silva is a master of hitting people and we’ve seen how accurate belfort is but still april is a long time to wait but i’m sure it’ll be worth the wait
Wow, might as well go back to having a PPV every 3 months. UFC cards are a mess right now.
I like this because I am going to be there at this fight and want to see Cain vs carwin in person. That fight would have some fireworks. I doubt nog will be back in time for feb 2nd, and I really like nog. I don’t want him to come in at any less than when he fought couture.
They really are dropping like flies!!!
Lets hope a big main event replaces this one.
I just want to see this for Maia’s return
There’s still plenty of time to book a good headliner for this fight… I hope they do.
Lets have nate and vitor fight at 109… come on UFC give us something… Plus I want to see chuck and coleman….. not Randy and Coleman….
Another day, another scrapped fight in the UFC.
Someone wake me when Dana and his fighters can manage to get their sh!t together…
IMO the problem is that they have too many cards. When one fighter goes down the whole show is ruined. If they didnt have so many shows they would be able to put out a much better product. I mean, does anyone really care to see Chael Sonnen fight? The guys got talent, but I don’t want to pay to see him.
I care to see Chael Sonnen fight, but then I’m personally more hardcore than most MMA fans. I understand that more cards means an injury or two does more damage, but to me more cards with less name value is better than less cards and seeing the same ten big name fighters all the time. Not to mention, more cards means more money for the fighters, and isn’t that something we see people complaining about all the time?
I care to see Chael Sonnen fight, not just against Nate Marquardt.
At least not until such time that Marquardt receives his 185 title shot, or at the very least a marquee fight leading to a 185 title shot.
Or am I supposed to believe that beating Chael Sonnen down under somehow qualifies Marqaurdt for a title shot when beating Demian Maia did not?
Not to disrespect Sonnen, but at his and Marquardt’s current career levels, this fight does way more for Sonnen than it does for Marquardt, a man that Dana SHOULD be looking to make things right by…
Hate to go against you, but did you ever think this may be why the fight wasn’t really officially announced (that I can recall anyway – and announced means the official card released, not twitter or someone’s myspace or blog)? There’s a reason That usually happens 6 weeks out. It means that any cancellations will truly be an unforeseen training injury.
You wanna blame someone for this? Blame us. Blame every blog that has to have the inside source and first announcement of a rumored fight.
You’re better than this, jtroll.
“jtroll”?!
Ouch.
biz the younger must have had his Wheaties or something this morning.
And fine, bro.
If you’d prefer me to blame “us”, rather than Dana and/or any of the fighters, I’m fine with that POV, and can admit to occasionally posting out of annoyance or disgust with the turn of recent UFC events.
Besides, dbiz, you SHOULD be thanking me for this uncharacteristic post.
After all, how long have you been waiting for an opportunity to drop “jtroll” here at the frenZy?
My point, Sparky, was that this fight was a rumor. Nothing more. It was never official. UFC 109 is not listed as a upcoming event on the UFC’s website.
The fight wasn’t cancelled, it just isn’t happening. You can’t blame Dana and the fighters for not putting together a fight that was rumored. You have to blame the rumors that got you excited.
As far as waiting to bust out a line? Come on, now. You know better. You drank your Trollerade, I called you on it. Go back to posting something solid. Redeem yourself.
Well in all fairness, and I hate to jump between a battle of the Frenzied, but pretty much all fights are “rumored” until about 2 months before the acutal card. If Joe Silva calls you up and says “You’re fighting so and so on so and so a date” you start training your arse off until you hear otherwise. You’ll twitter, or facebook, or myspace, or whatever else you to tell your fans that you’re training to fight so and so, and thus the fight becomes all but official. What you’re saying dbiz, and look carefully at the heading of this topic, is that the fight was never on the books. MMAFrenzy.com says that the fight was scratched from 109, meaning the site we all go to for our MMA info thought at one time that Anderson vs Vitor was a go for 109.
On the UFC.com website, nothing is up for 109. You think that no one is training to fight at 109? UFC.com typically waits until the card is 2 months away before posting official fights.
And to be fair I’ll go on the record to say that I don’t agree with jcohl’s idea that Dana and his fighters need to get it together. I think rather in today’s day (and being a healthcare professional), communicable disease is more dangerous than ever and gyms need to invest in proper cleaning and disinfectants. You can’t blame the fighters and the promoters for wanting to give us the best fights possible.
I understand that completely, eldiablo, and mostly I agree. I’m not entirely unreasonable, just mostly. My boy jcohl there dipping to trollish depths just bothered me and I felt the need to address it before he started really going off the deep end.
Besides, jtroll was just too good of a spur of the moment line to waste.
However…
The reason the UFC holds off until 6-8 weeks before to announce their cards is two-fold. 1. It allows them to shuffle in the case one of their planned fights has to be scratched. 2. It allows the fighters part of their camps – and possibly the most cardio-intense and likely to be injured part – to begin before the fight is truly committed.
This particular fight is different altogether. This was not some freak training injury. Silva had surgery. There is no way this fight was going to be announced until that elbow has been cleared AND he had a chance to get a camp started. Any delay was 100% guaranteed to delay the fight.
How this could be unforeseen or unexpected is totally beyond me.
OK.
dbiz would like me to recover from my weekend trip to trollsville by posting something solid, even though my ratio of solid posts to trollish posts here at the frenZy is like a thousand to one.
Fair enough.
In spite of our good-natured sparring, dbiz as always makes a good point, and far be it from me to not rise to a challange, so I’ll throw this out there, and we’ll see what we see:
At what point do we start REASONABLY discussing the increasingly uncharacteristic behavior of Ed Soares, and by extension Anderson Silva, which Justin H and others have recently touched on here at the frenZy?
Didn’t we hear from Soares at one point that Silva was good to go, and then “suddenly” ELECTED to have elbow surgery?
Lets bear in mind here, it’s not like Silva blew out his elbow in a lengthy, grueling throwdown with Forrest Griffin. It’s also not like Silva had his elbow popped in a fight defending his title against Nate Marquardt, the forgotten man at 185.
The man simply CHOSE to have the surgery at the time, even though he knew he was going to have to defend his 185 belt against someone, eventually.
IMO its one thing to be dealing with staph, or whatever mutant T virus strain Brock Lesnar is currently under treatment for. Its quite another to have elective surgery, especially so close to the “deadline” wherein Silva-thru-Soares has commented that he’d like to hang up his gloves [April/Spring 2010].
Between Silva [and/or Soares] waving off fighters like Hendo and Marqaurdt, expressing “disappointment” over facing Vitor Belfort, a former training partner of sorts, and then “preferring” not to fight fellow BlackHouse-mates like Lyoto Machida, and I guess by association LittleNog, the question remains:
Who exactly is Anderson Silva willing to fight, and when?
And exactly what it is going to take to get this guy back in the Octagon?
More money? Some sort of contractual concession? Co-promotion?
Also, how much if this “irregularity” can be placed at the feet of Anderson Silva, and how much at the feet of Ed Soares?
I don’t consider myself a Silva supporter, nor a detractor. I can respect his in-cage performances without ordering a ton of his walkout wear from Silver Star or whoever.
The truth is Anderson Silva has earned a lot of latitude with his HoF run in the UFC. He’s cleaned out his division and humilated arguably the most popular guy in the UFC, and more importantly, he’s done it in a sportsmanlike fashion.
But when exactly does Silva expend all of his goodwill?
How long are we supposed to cheer for a man that allows Ed Soares to run his mouth unchecked?
I’m pretty much at the end of my personal Anderson Silva rope.
I won’t go as far to say that Silva is ducking anyone, because I don’t see any evidence of that. What I do see is an emerging pattern of managerial obfuscation and irregular timing which lead to, as Justin H terms it, “shady” optics.
If Silva is no longer passionate about MMA, then he should simply retire. If Silva’s more seriously injured than previously reported, then he should come clean and not allow Ed Soares to tarnish his image with offhanded commentary and such.
Basically, I’mm looking for Anderson Silva to do what I’m waiting for Fedor to do, which is basically to tell his handler/s to shut the fu<k up, and allow their principal to handle his business in the cage, regardless of consequence…
Aw, see? That wasn’t so hard.
As far as fighters Tweeting and posting on their facebooks about upcoming fights, that was something the UFC got onto them about at the “Fighter Summit” a few weeks ago, basically telling them not to say anything until the UFC had officially announced the fights.
NOOOOOOOOOO
This is getting out of hand. I hate to be the one to say it but, having sooooo many events is starting to become a BIG problem!!!
Yea this is getting REALLY annoying
im not convinced… for some reason i have the feeling that 112 wont be when we see this fight. i think that it will probably get pushed back even further…
I think you could be right about that… Soares/Silva and their negotiating tactics are looking shadier by the day. Remember back when Silva was “200% healthy” and could take a fight the next month… but then like a week later it was “Anderson just had elbow surgery.” Shady I tell ya.
Aren’t we also getting close to the timeframe [April 2010] wherein Soares has commented that Silva would like to retire??
I reckon due to alot of big name fighters dropping from fight cards it is becoming more acceptable for them to say they are injured and pull out. I think before fighters would have fought with theses injuries and then complain afterwards. Like Swick v Kampmann, it was just a concussion, most fighters would fight with a concussion and that was four weeks out for gods sake, thats too much for me tbh, Silva may well need more time to recover but gonzaga, brock, nog, gsp, machida, they all can’t be injured so much that they cant fight. Going into fights with injuries is taken as a given in mma but maybe that wont be for long if the fighters keep dropping out because they have an ingrown toe nail
Silva is less forgivable than Gonzaga, Brock, Nog, GSP, and Machida. Silva had elective surgery and is “recovering slower than expected.” While Gonzaga, Brock and Nog are dealing with illnesses (all of which could have been fatal) and GSP and Machida actually got hurt in fights.
This is getting real weak real fast. How’s about these guys take care of themselves and the gym owners clean their gyms once in a while.
But on a selfish note, maybe two title fights in Montreal?
David
Yea,all the delays suck,but most fighters do fight through minor injuries.The fighters you mentioned above all have pretty significant injuries.And i don’t blame someone putting there belt on the line wanting to be 100%.You go in there and loose you belt because your fighting at 70%.I’m sure you’d be kicking yourself in ass,for being stubborn.
silva said it would be a quick recovery. so much for that.
Yeah,something’s up cause I saw Anderson tell Dana his elbow was fine at 106.
Yeah, see my above comment about Soares and Silva.
I have a feeling Franklin will be headlining this now. Seems like he is also the go to guy whenever they need a headliner at the last minute.
Anyone think a rival mma organisation might have stolen the ufc title belts or something
Hate to say atoadaso but atoadaso.
silva should take this by decision
Only Canadians will get this comment.
God I love TPB.
Didn’t Silva say a few weeks back that he was disappointed Belfort took this fight?
The way it was reported, Belfort trained with Silva and the Nogs and showed a lack of loyalty by agreeing to this fight. Now Silva seems to be ducking Belfort.
Silva has said he would never fight Machida because they’ve trained together and it would show a lack of loyalty and respect for each other.
Perhaps that’s why Silva’s not stepping up to the plate.
Then he should lose his title.
I remember back when silva just got done cutting down a forrest,Soares was talking about silva fighting heavywieght.He was quoted as saying silva wants to fight the best in the world, going as far as saying he would fight brock if the money was right.Idk I just want silva to fight someone he is to talented to have a bimbo manager like that lot of talk but no action. Ill fight silva if he doesnt want belfort just send my body back home with cash for my family.