Vitor Belfort

By FCF Staff

As Vitor Belfort continues to wait for a middleweight title shot, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is reportedly trying to book a bout between him and fellow Brazilian vet Lyoto Machida. Although nothing has been confirmed, the promotion would like to have the fight co-headline UFC 167 on November 16th.

FUEL TV’s Ariel Helwani announced the news on the latest episode of “UFC Tonight”, and relayed that a dispute between Belfort and Machida goes back to UFC 152, when Belfort apparently wore a shirt that read ‘Your son doesn’t run away from a fight.’ Machida and his camp apparently took it as an insult. Belfort stepped in at the event and fought light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones, after Machida turned down the short notice bout.

Belfort’s camp has stated recently they’re not interested in having him compete at 185 unless it’s for a title shot, but since Machida has been competing at light-heavyweight, the match-up might appeal to “The Phenom.”According to the aforementioned report, however, Dana White would prefer to have the Belfort-Machida bout take place at 185.

Machida is coming off a tightly contested, and controversial unanimous decision loss to Phil Davis at UFC 163, while Belfort hasn’t fought since May when he knocked out Luke Rockhold.