Few fighters want to wear UFC gold as badly as UFC middleweight Michael Bisping and his recent tweet to UFC president Dana White only further reinforces that.
After hearing about UFC middleweight champion’s comments to Tatame (translation via Google translate), stating that he doesn’t plan to fight until late 2013, Bisping took to Twitter to ask his boss for a favor of sorts.
“@danawhite if Anderson wants to take time off to be a movie star make me and vitor for the interim title????”
Also in the interview with Tatame, Silva indicates he will be shooting a part in an action movie in Canada shortly after UFC 154 (which takes place in Montreal, Quebec).
Meanwhile, Bisping vs. Belfort was announced earlier in the month by UFC Brazil webpage for their Jan. 19 card in Sao Paulo.
Silva only fought a month ago at UFC 153, scoring an easy TKO victory over Stephan Bonnar, but that bout was contested at light heavyweight.
“The Spider” most recently defended his middleweight belt against rival Chael Sonnen at UFC 148, defeating the decorated American wrestler a second time, this time via second round TKO.
The UFC’s welterweight and bantamweight divisions have utilized interim titles in the past year when the reigning champions (Georges St-Pierre and Dominick Cruz) were expected to be on the shelf for roughly a year, but the situation with Silva seems markedly different.
Bisping is fresh off of a win over Brian Stann at UFC 152 in September, but lost his previous fight against Sonnen at UFC on FOX 2 in January. Meanwhile, Belfort was riding a two-fight win streak at middleweight before stepping up as a late replacement for UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones at UFC 152.
“The Phenom” was soundly defeated by the champion, getting submitted by the champion in the fourth round, though the challenger came close with an armbar in the opening round of the title bout.
Despite their recent records being unimpressive, do Bisping and Belfort deserve to fight for an interim middleweight title given that Silva has announced his intentions to not defend his title for over a year?