(Photo: Kenneth Cappello- as posted at vitorbelfort.com)

Vitor “The Phenom” Belfort first debuted with the UFC back in 1997, and after moving between the UFC and Pride (among other ) organizations over the past 12 years, has come back home again to make a run at the Middleweight title.  Belfort is known for fantastic hand-speed and KO power and with the rest of the division… and some of the Light Heavyweights already taken out by Anderson Silva … Vitor’s return to the UFC was certainly geared towards a title match.

Taking a very serious fight against Rich Franklin, Belfort was able to step immediately into title contention after stopping Franklin in  a very quick 3 minutes by TKO. Prior to that fight, only Anderson Silva had been able to stop Franklin in his 7 year career with the UFC and considering Franklin has only ever been beaten by the MMA elite (Anderson Silva x 2, Dan Henderson, Lyoto Machida)  just getting a win, let alone a stoppage over Franklin is a considerable achievement for any fighter.

After going a perfect 10-0 in the UFC, Anderson Silva who has definitely been praised as one of the best MMA talents in the world, has begun to wear on fans a bit … hey, it’s human nature to get bored.  While he has been a great champion in terms of highlight reel footage, he has also had some lacluster moments in the Octagon  which included a failure to engage and finish and moments of extreme showboating (see Leites, Cote, Griffin).

It seems the fans are ready for a change, if not a challenge and Belfort is the UFC’s answer to this dilemma.  While Belfort’s career record of 19-8-0 is not as stellar as Anderson Silva (25-4-0),  or even Rich Franklin (25-5 0)… he has a lot of tools to challenge the champion; namely that speed, power and the intangible factor of just riding a hot streak.  Belfort is peaking while Anderson, while greatly skilled is stagnating while discussing boxing matches and retirement.

 The 2 fighters are set to face each other at UFC 112 on April 10th in Abu Dhabi, in what has been reported to be an outdoor venue which should be another interesting component of the fight. Regardless of the outcome, with a challenger like Belfort, Silva will not have an opportunity to play games in the Octagon, at least not without risking his belt in the process.

Both fighters have never been KO’d, but Anderson Silva has never been TKO’d either and Belfort has on 2 occasions in the past…both times by Randy Couture.  If Silva can take out Belfort, then a chatty Chael Sonnen is ready, willing and waiting in the wings for his crack at the belt.

From a pure fighting perspective, you have to appreciate Anderson Silva’s skills although he has never really appealed as a UFC champion in terms of promotability.  The low PPV buy rate for Anderson Silva main events have been widely discussed in the past and generally result in the need for a solid co-main event to draw the fans into parting with 50 bucks.  Based on that fact alone, here’s betting that the UFC wouldn’t mind some new talent sporting the Middleweight Championship belt in 2010.

As usual…time will tell.