{"id":181168,"date":"2015-12-31T08:01:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T16:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=181168"},"modified":"2015-12-31T08:01:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-31T16:01:14","slug":"did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Belfort turn down fight with Silva at UFC London?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prior to the announcement that <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mmanews\/anderson-silva-officialy-set-to-return-on-february-27th\/\">Michael Bisping and Anderson Silva would fight<\/a> in the main event at UFC Fight Night London on February 27th, there was much speculation as to whether or not <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mmanews\/report-anderson-silva-vs-vitor-belfort-ii-set-for-ufc-197\/\">Silva and Vitor Belfort would sign to have a rematch in the near future.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to Bisping, Belfort was given the first crack at Silva for the event, however he declined the fight.<\/p>\n<p>Bisping spoke on the <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mmanews\/replay-silva-vs-bisping-conference-call\/\">UFC London media conference call earlier this week:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;Vitor Belfort turned the fight down.  There you go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When Dana called me and said the opponent had changed from Gegard (Mousasi) to Anderson (Silva), I was thrilled. I always wanted to show the world that I could beat Anderson and I know I can and I get to do that in February.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dana just called and said there had been some discussions internally at the UFC and they decided to change things around and do I want to fight Anderson? Of course, I didn&#8217;t even hesitate. I said yes immediately and that was that. All said and done. I&#8217;m a happy man.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior to the announcement that Michael Bisping and Anderson Silva would fight in the main event at UFC Fight Night London on February 27th, there was much speculation as to whether or not Silva and Vitor Belfort would sign to have a rematch in the near future. According to Bisping, Belfort was given the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":128375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2681],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Did Belfort turn down fight with Silva at UFC London? | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did Belfort turn down fight with Silva at UFC London? | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Prior to the announcement that Michael Bisping and Anderson Silva would fight in the main event at UFC Fight Night London on February 27th, there was much speculation as to whether or not Silva and Vitor Belfort would sign to have a rematch in the near future. According to Bisping, Belfort was given the first [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-31T16:01:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Vitor-Belfort1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"730\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"380\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"bjpenndotcom\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/7c8b8d1602cb47040b7a5cd250d5b90a\"},\"headline\":\"Did Belfort turn down fight with Silva at UFC London?\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-31T16:01:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-31T16:01:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/\"},\"wordCount\":191,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"UFC NEWS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2015\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/did-belfort-turn-down-fight-with-silva-at-ufc-london\/\",\"name\":\"Did Belfort turn down fight with Silva at UFC London? 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