Gegard Mousasi appears serious
about his return to the middleweight division, and he’s aiming for the top of
the UFC’s 185-pound division.
Mousasi (34-3-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC)
today took to Twitter to stump UFC President Dana White for a shot at top
contender Vitor Belfort (23-10 MMA, 12-6 UFC).
“@danawhite @ufc I hoop I can
fight in december against Belfort... I think my fans would love that fight,” he
wrote.
However, as MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) recently reported, White
hasn’t counted out the possibility of Belfort, who’s fresh off a violent
knockout of former Strikeforce champion Luke Rockhold at UFC on FX 8, facing
the winner of next month’s UFC 162 headliner between middleweight champion
Anderson Silva and challenger Chris Weidman.
“It would make sense for
[Belfort to meet the winner of the Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman] fight, and
that’s not far away,” White said. “Those two fight, and we see what happens. Or
Vitor could fight again. I don’t know. But he could fight either one of those
guys.”
Currently, Belfort is ranked
No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com MMA middleweight rankings. Mousasi
is ranked No. 12 in the light-heavyweight rankings.
Mousasi, who’s currently on
the mend following knee surgery, made his UFC debut and fought light
heavyweight Ilir Latifi (a late replacement for Alexander Gustafsson) despite
the injury back in April at UFC on FUEL TV 9. He earned a unanimous-decision
win and then scheduled the surgery.
However, this past month, the
former DREAM middleweight champion and ex-Strikeforce light-heavyweight
champion said he was contemplating a return to the 185-pound division once he’s
healed and back in the cage later this year.
Since the last time he
competed at middleweight (September 2008), Mousasi has spent most of his time
at light heavyweight, though he won a fight in the 2009 DREAM Super Hulk
open-weight tournament before an injury forced him out of the field. (Source)
