Champ Weidman 'pissed off' at 'juicehead' Belfort, who also turned down Mousasi

It turns out that Lyoto Machida wasn’t the only one to accept an offer to replace injured UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman – only to have Vitor Belfort turn down the fight.

Gegard Mousasi (36-5-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) got the call from the UFC, as well. The offer came on the heels of Mousasi’s first-round TKO win over Dan Henderson (30-13 MMA, 7-7 UFC) at UFC on FOX 14 on Jan. 24.

The win over Henderson was Mousasi’s first fight since a September 2014 loss to Ronaldo Souza at UFC Fight Night 50. Getting back on the winning side of things was big for Mousasi, and it left him needing time to think things over when the call came in to replace Weidman (12-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC), who had to recently pull out of a planned UFC 184 middleweight title defense against Vitor Belfort (24-10 MMA, 13-6 UFC) on Feb. 28 due to an injured rib.

“I was planning on going on holiday, but the UFC called me and asked me, ‘Would you like to fight Vitor Belfort?’ and I said I had to talk to my coaches because I didn’t want to have that burn-out feeling again of fighting just because you have a fight,” Mousasi told FoxSports.com.

Ultimately, the Mousasi camp decided the opportunity was too good to pass up and offered to step in should Machida (22-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC) not accept the initial offer.

“Then I said yes, but it wasn’t like I challenged him,” Mousasi said. “The UFC asked me to fight, and I said OK, I’m going to take the fight. Machida was first, and I was Plan B, but Vitor said no to both.”

Belfort released a statement on Sunday suggesting that he was willing to fight anyone as long as the fight was for the full UFC middleweight title rather than the interim belt.

“If UFC gives 8 weeks and the middleweight Belt available for dispute I fight with anyone from the ranking,” the statement read. “Not for an Interin [sic], But the Middleweight Belt!”

UFC President Dana White discussed the Belfort-Machida situation at Saturday’s UFC 183 post-fight press conference and called the situation “typical Vitor.” White said that Belfort had been calling him and requesting an interim title fight, so White attempted to get one made.

“What I did was I picked up the phone and I called Lyoto Machida,” he said. “The first thing Lyoto Machida said is, ‘Send me the bout agreement.’”

It was then, according to White, the Belfort camp lost its interest in a bout for the interim title.

“I called (Vitor’s camp) back, and they’re like, ‘Uh, yeah, we’ll wait for the Chris Weidman (fight),'” he said. “So there you go.”

Weidman vs. Belfort has been postponed multiple times already. Initially planned for UFC 173, the bout had to be moved when Belfort announced that the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s ban of testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT) required him to drop out of the fight and change his training methods.

It was then revealed that Belfort had already failed a drug test for elevated testosterone at the time of his announcement.

Weidman suffered a broken hand that pushed the fight out of the planned UFC 181 replacement date and now has a rib injury that killed the UFC 184 bout.

Weidman spoke about the situation on The MMA Hour and said he went from feelings of sympathy for Belfort to “pissed off” with the way the Brazilian has comported himself in the past week.

“”First of all, Vitor, he failed a drug test,” Weidman said. “That’s his second drug test that he failed. Usually he’d be out for at least a year, but I think they tested him when there was no bout agreement, so they couldn’t really punish him the way they wanted to. He wasn’t licensed. So the guy’s lucky as anything that he’s not in trouble.”

Weidman also placed the blame for Belfort’s inactivity on the fighter’s feet. Weidman also pointed out that he has fought too recently for the UFC to strip him of his title to allow Belfort to fight for the full championship.

“I mean, he’s a two-time convicted juicehead at this point, and he’s not realizing that,” Weidman said. “I understand that he hasn’t fought in a long time, but that’s his fault. I fought. I fought in July. That’s six months ago, against Machida.”

As of now, Belfort has no fight scheduled, interim title or not, and Ronda Rousey will headline UFC 184 on Feb. 28 by defending her UFC women’s bantamweight championship against Cat Zingano.

For more on UFC 184, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.