Vitor Belfort still needs to fight Wanderlei again. I want to see it. I also want to see him fight Chael. All three of these guys still need to fight each other in various combinations before they retire, or we MMA fans will have MMA Blue Balls, a very serious condition that I don’t want again after the Overeem/Fedor debacle of a few years ago.
Still, all of these guys have something to say about each other, and now it’s Vitor’s turn. Vitor posted this to his Facebook in Portuguese on Monday. It has been translated by the Google machine.
“Martial arts brought discipline and respect into my life, when I was only 8 years old, when I started practicing Judo,” said Belfort. “I see a responsibility to the sporting heroes that influenced me. I’ve always felt compelled to reciprocate, and be an athlete who represented the sport with the same discipline and respect that was taught me when I first started, almost 30 years ago.
“The brawl between Wanderlei Silva and Sonnen on TUF Brazil embarrassed me. First, because MMA is not violence, it is a fight between prepared athletes, inside an Octagon. That’s what I do. I don’t brawl, I fight. Second, there is no room for this in a sport like MMA, that has clear rules for unsportsmanlike conduct, both inside and outside the Octagon. Third and most importantly, MMA cannot, ever, have occurrences where discussion ends in aggression, as if this was an appropriate model of behavior. Millions of young people suffer violence both inside and outside of school; TV cannot be promoting this kind of behavior and even worse, athletes must not lose control and show violence, no matter what the provocation.
“MMA fighters must – urgently – be aware that their behavior inside and outside of the cage can influence millions of people, for better or for worse. I chose to influence for good, because MMA has chosen to be good. Anything outside of that is no longer MMA, and definitely do not represent me.”