UFC
Dana White: Vitor Belfort was blowing me up for interim title fight at UFC 184, then turned down Lyoto Machida bout
Feb 1, 2015 - 8:35:29 AM Dana White: Vitor Belfort was blowing me up for interim title fight at UFC 184, then turned down Lyoto Machida bout

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

UFC President Dana White has a bad habit of verbally burying fighters when they don't do things exactly as he'd like them to, and that continued during the UFC 183 post-fight show on Fox Sports 1 on Saturday night.

White wasn't talking down one of the night's competitors this time, instead he was trying to make Vitor Belfort look bad for not taking a proposed fight with Lyoto Machida at UFC 184.

"Vitor Belfort was blowing me up, asking me for an interim title fight [after Chris Weidman's injury]," White said on the FS1 broadcast (transcribed by BloodyElbow.com). "My thoughts were, '[Weidman's] not going to be out that long to make it an interim title fight.' But I pulled together this fight. I called Lyoto Machida. He said 'send me the bout agreement'. I called Vitor back and Vitor didn't think that was a great idea. He's going to wait."

"It surprised me a lot, especially with all the calls and texts I was getting."

UFC 184 will now instead be headlined by the Women's Bantamweight Championship bout between Ronda Rousey and Cat Zingano.

Penick's Analysis: I get that it certainly doesn't look good for Belfort to try finagling an interim title fight only to turn it down when it's proposed, but their reasoning for not fighting Machida on four weeks notice makes sense. Perhaps they should have spelled out who they'd have been willing to fight in that situation, but White's right that he did what was asked of him in finding that fight. Still, I don't fault Belfort for turning that particular fight down for the reasons his jiu jitsu coach Gilbert Burns explained on Saturday. Fighters have every right to turn down fights, and perhaps the reason it doesn't happen as often is the public comments from White after the fact.