Vitor Belfort will not be having his long-awaited rematch with Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva next month at UFC 147.
The former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion withdrew from the fight on Sunday with a broken hand suffered in training, leaving Silva without an opponent for next month's UFC 147 fight card. While UFC matchmaker Joe Silva scrambles to find a new opponent for "The Axe Murderer" now that the rematch 14 years in the making is off the table, it's just one more matchmaking headache stemming from the UFC's hit reality show, The Ultimate Fighter.
In advance of their rematch from UFC Brazil in 1998 - a 44-second knockout by "The Phenom" - Silva and Belfort had been coaching the first all-Brazilian season of TUF, which is scheduled to start its US television run on June 10 on FUEL TV. The finals of that show's featherweight and middleweight divisions are expected to be contested as part of the UFC 147 fight card, which will take place on June 23 at Estadio Jornalista Felipe Drumond in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
With that card's main event having been scrapped due to Belfort's injury, it's another tough blow for a card that was originally planned for a soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro before a scheduling conflict with the UN's Rio+20 conference forced a change in plans. The move to the smaller venue cost the card it planned main event, a UFC Middleweight Championship rematch between champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva and challenger Chael Sonnen. However, perhaps more significantly, the scrapped Silva-Belfort bout marks another battle between TUF coaches that has been delayed or canceled.
Five of the last seven seasons of TUF, including TUF Brazil, have seen the fight between the coaches postponed or fail to materialize altogether. It started with the 10th season, which was due to culminate in the eagerly-awaited fight between former UFC Light Heavyweight Champions Rashad Evans and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. That fight, originally scheduled for UFC 107 in December 2009, was put on hold when Jackson took time off to film The A-Team, and wound up being contested at UFC 114 in May 2010. That was followed by TUF 11, coached by longtime rivals Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, whose planned fight at UFC 115 was scrapped when Ortiz required neck surgery. Rich Franklin was tapped to take Ortiz's spot on the show and in the fight with Liddell, and after Franklin delivered a vicious knockout late in the first round, Liddell retired from fighting.
The show's 12th season went off without a hitch, as coaches Josh Koscheck and Georges St-Pierre did indeed have their battle for GSP's UFC Welterweight Championship at UFC 124, but the following season, coached by heavyweights Brock Lesnar and Junior dos Santos, had its coach fight scrapped due to a flare-up of Lesnar's diverticulitis. Former interim UFC Heavyweight Champion Shane Carwin stepped in, only to be thoroughly outclassed by dos Santos, who would go on to claim the UFC Heavyweight Championship before the end of the year.
That led to this year, with the show's new live format on FX in the U.S., as well as the Brazilian expansion of the franchise. Both TUF 15 and TUF Brazil have seen their coach fights scrapped, as UFC Bantamweight Champion Dominick Cruz suffered a torn ACL and was forced to withdraw from his trilogy fight with rival Urijah Faber. "The California Kid" will instead face Renan Barão, a man riding a 28-fight unbeaten streak, for an interim title.
A replacement for Belfort still has yet to be named, but it's certainly one more headache for Joe Silva.
