It’s been the talk at office water coolers for weeks now that the main event for March’s UFC 197 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil could be a rematch between Brazilian middleweights Anderson “The Spider” Silva and “The Phenom” Vitor Belfort. Their first bout took place at UFC 126 nearly five years ago, where Silva succesfully defended his UFC middleweight title with a front-kick knockout of Belfort, ultimately recording arguably the most used highlight in UFC history. The news of this rematch gets fight fans giddy with excitement. So much so that it becomes easy to block out their recent legal troubles. Silva last saw action 10 months ago, where he defeated Nick Diaz via unanimous decision on the judges’ scorecards. The result of the five round main event bout was later turned into a No Contest, when the former UFC middleweight champion tested positive for having drostanolone and androsterone in his system. Having served his suspension, “The Spider” is ready to make his return to the Octagon and word is he’s found himself a fight. This rematch would come after a rubbermatch for Belfort, who is coming off a first round knockout of Dan Henderson, which took place just weeks ago at UFC Fight Night 77 in Brazil. It was an impressive way for “The Phenom” to return to the win column following a failed bid at current champion Chris Weidman and his gold, and with another impressive victory over “The Spider” in this rematch, he could certainly make a case for a rematch with the winner of UFC 194’s Weidman vs Rockhold. The rumored UFC 197 main event is widely talked about, largely in part due to UFC President Dana White acknowledging that Silva vs Belfort II is indeed the next fight he wants to book for both veteran 185-pounders. The evening’s co-headliner was rumored to be a middleweight match-up between Lyoto Machida and Michael Bisping, but that was proven to not be the case when the Michael Bisping vs Gegard Mousasi match-up was announced earlier this week. The two will go to war in presumably the main event for February’s UFC Fight Night 83 in Bisping’s backyard of London. Brazilian fighters who are not currently booked for fights that we could see on the UFC 197 fight card are Thomas de Almeida, Glover Teixeira, Iuri Alcantara, Thales Leites, Rani Yahya, Alan Patrick, Kevin Souza, Leandro Silva, Hacran Dias, John Lineker, Valmir Lazaro, Michel Prazeres, Erick Silva, Bigfoot Silva, Thiago Tavares, Godofredo Pepey, Roan Carneiro, Pedro Munhoz and Thiago Alves.
Silva/Belfort Main Event Rumored for UFC 197
