Belfort's manager: Wanderlei Silva, Sonnen ideal fights after UFC 212
Vitor Belfort's days in the cage are far from over.
After "The Phenom" revealed that, contrary to popular belief, he wouldn't hang up his gloves once he's fought out his UFC contract in a bout with Nate Marquardt on June 3, his manager, Gustavo Lacerda, doubled down on the news, reiterating the 40-year-old's competitive fire still burns bright.
"Technically and physically, Vitor has full conditions to continue fighting," Lacerda recently said on the "MMA Ganhador" podcast, according to MMA Fighting's Guilherme Cruz. "Of course, he has the hormonal deficiency everybody knows. ... But I think he lit up his fire again. We'll go fight by fight. First, we'll think about his fight with Nate Marquardt, and then we have more good things ahead."
Lacerda even laid out a few options for life after the Octagon, namely meetings with a pair of UFC alumni in Wanderlei Silva and Chael Sonnen - both of whom now call Bellator MMA home.
"What I think it's possible to imagine is: what does the MMA fan wants? He wants to see Vitor vs. Wanderlei (Silva), wants to see Vitor vs. (Chael) Sonnen. He wants these type of fights. And it's the type of fights that interests us. Vitor doesn't need to prove anything regarding to ranking or title. The idea is to have fights that are interesting. Interest the fans, and interest the fighter."
"I'm particularly crazy to see Vitor vs. Wanderlei. It's a fight I pay to see. There are fights people want to see, and those are the fights that are interesting. Where it will be, and how it will be, I can't say anything right now. But they might happen."
Belfort laid a beatdown on Silva nearly 20 years ago in their native Brazil, and later saw a rematch with "The Axe Murderer" and a date with Sonnen fall through in 2012 and 2014, respectively.
Three weeks after Belfort meets Marquardt in his native Rio de Janeiro at UFC 212, Silva and Sonnen will clash in a long-awaited grudge match at Bellator NYC on June 24 at Madison Square Garden.