Belfort suffered a dislocated shoulder prior to Weidman loss

A dislocated shoulder prevented Vitor Belfort from hurling his powerful right hand at Chris Weidman during their bout at UFC 187 last week. At least that's the story The Young Dinosaur told reporters on Saturday.

After an early flurry of offense during the opening moments of their bout, Vitor was taken down by Weidman and bludgeoned by the UFC middleweight champion until referee Herb Dean mercifully ended the carnage at 2:53 of the opening stanza.

"I spent too much energy there," Belfort said of his early burst of offense, according to MMAFighting.com's Guilherme Cruz. "If I took one step back, waited a little bit, I would have knocked him out. I'm sure I would have knocked him out. But I started to punch with the left hand, didn't punch too much with the right hand because I dislocated my shoulder, so I wouldn't be able to throw hard punches. That was his moment. He's really tough on the ground."

Although it appeared Belfort had completely gassed himself out with that immediate surge of violence, the former UFC light heavyweight kingpin credits Weidman's heavy top game for his inability to peel his back off the mat.

"You can't throw a lot of punches and don't get a bit tired, but it wasn't my gas that stopped me from fighting," Belfort said. "When we went to the ground, he used his weight and was able to land punches. That was his moment.

"I spent six hours watching the tape. I was almost punching myself," he added. "I looked like those guys (fighting) in a bar. How do you fight like that? Vitor Belfort and I discussed it. I said: 'Why did you do that? Why didn't you use your experience? Why didn't you take a step back?’ Mistakes. You make mistakes and have to fix them."