Dana White


14 years after first fight, Brazilian legends will rematch


The UFC's first international edition of its popular reality competition "The Ultimate Fighter" will take place in Brazil, and the coaches will be Brazilian MMA legends Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort.


UFC president Dana White announced Tuesday the selection of the two coaches at the back end of a press conference in Rio de Janeiro announcing next month's UFC 142 event.


As is tradition following completion of the show, the two coaches will fight. And for Silva and Belfort, that means a rematch from the UFC's first trip to Brazil in October 1998. In that fight, which took place prior to Zuffa's purchase of the promotion, Belfort beat Silva by TKO 44 seconds into the first round.


Silva said White picking two veterans as coaches for the all-Brazilian TUF contestants, which will be chosen following a tryout in Sao Paulo in the coming days, will be key to making the fighters' experience on the show a good one.


"If I can teach one lesson to one of these athletes, if I can motivate them, that will already be a victory for me," Silva said. "There's a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, and the boss made a good decision selecting two experienced fighters. I hope I can meet his expectations."


Silva is coming off a TKO win over Cung Le at UFC 139 last month in San Jose, Calif., a co-main event bout that was given co-Fight of the Night honors along with the five-round instant classic between Dan Henderson and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.


Belfort said he won't set out to be better as a coach than Silva, but rather to help his team members as much as he can.


"It's a great privilege to be part of the past, part of the present and also part of the future," Belfort said."My job isn't to be better than him. My job is to be my best. If I do my best, that's already enough. I will be there with my mind, soul and spirit doing all I can, and I'm sure I'll do a good job."


Belfort is scheduled to face Anthony Johnson next month at UFC 142 in Rio before putting on his coach hat for TUF Brazil. His last fight was a Knockout of the Night win over Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 133 in August.


White said he is unsure when or where Silva and Belfort will fight. But a late spring to early summer card in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, has been hinted at by White in recent weeks. And Tuesday, he said the UFC would be looking at not only arenas in the city, but also stadiums. When asked if Silva-Belfort 2 might be a good fight to hold in a Sao Paulo soccer stadium, which would have the potential to break the UFC's attendance record set in April in Toronto, White grinned. "Interesting – could be. We'll see," he said.


White said as big as "The Ultimate Fighter" has become in the United States, he expects it to be a monumental television experience in Brazil.


"It's incredibly popular – it's huge for us (in the United States)," White said. "And we think it's going to be a thousand times bigger here in Brazil. We've got two legends of the sport – what we really like to do is find two people who have a lot to offer to the younger talent, and these are the guys. We could not be more excited about this, and this country should be excited about it."


TUF Brazil is expected to begin airing in March on Globo, a Brazilian television network Globo. While there have been no officially announced plans for TUF Brazil to air in the United States, White has said he expects the UFC will find a way to make those episodes available to fans outside Brazil – perhaps on Fox subsidiary Fuel TV, which is scheduled to air 2,000 hours of UFC content in 2012.




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