Chris Weidman pulled out of his middleweight title defense at UFC 184 against Vitor Belfort on Friday and the card will now be headlined by Ronda Rousey defending the women’s bantamweight title against Cat Zingano.
Following UFC 183 last night, UFC President Dana White stated on the post fight show on Fox Sports 1 that he is attempting to keep Belfort on the February 27 fight card.
White stated that Vitor and his wife were blowing his phone up after Weidman pulled out of the fight. Both of them were asking for an interim title fight at UFC 184.
“I had a lot of stuff going on that day,” White said. “So it was about 8:30 at night by the time I got to it and handled it. What I did was I picked up the phone and I called Lyoto Machida. I said, ‘Here’s the deal.’ The first thing Lyoto Machida said is, ‘Send me the bout agreement. I called (Vitor’s team) back, and they’re like, ‘Uh, yeah, we’ll wait for the Chris Weidman. So there you go.”
White would later state that he has one other option for Belfort at UFC 184, but he did not give any details on what the other option is. Could the other option be Luke Rockhold? He has been asking for a rematch with Belfort for several months and it’s a fight that would make sense as an interim title fight.