Vitor Belfort is trying to get some attention on ONE’s product by calling out a 50-year-old pro wrestler.
For the last two years, Vitor Belfort has been all bark and no bite. He signed with ONE Championship to compete in their heavyweight division back in 2019, but we’ve yet to see the 43-year-old in competition as of yet. That hasn’t stopped him from promoting ONE at every opportunity, and since their programming is about to start airing on TNT in the US, he’s back to his old tricks.
And by old tricks, I mean calling out a 50-year-old pro wrestler who has never competed in combat sports.
Back in December, Belfort thought it would be a good idea to try to talk up fights with Yoel Romero and Jake Paul. Now, since ONE will be airing on Wednedays following a wrestling show, AEW Dynamite, Belfort spoke to the South China Morning Post and decided to call out the cornerstone of the AEW roster – Le Champion, Chris Jericho.
“With myself being with ONE, and on the same network, I think it’s time for (AEW CEO) Tony Khan to give me Jericho, and I can whip Jericho’s butt. We can really make that fight happen,” Belfort said. “I think this is what the audience wants, we can draw a lot of audience for AEW and ONE. It’s time to cross-promote and bring these two together. ONE has a lot of top athletes, including myself, and we can make some big fights in both.”
“It’s gonna be phenomenal. Think about me and Chris Jericho doing a ONE fight and going over there, imagine how many fans wanna see that – him making his debut in ONE, and me making my debut in AEW,” Belfort said.
True to form, Jericho responded with sarcasm:
Who is @vitorbelfort ? https://t.co/wWID5rFhBt
— Chris Jericho (@IAmJericho) February 2, 2021
While Jericho is one of the best pro wrestlers ever, he has zero experience in combat sports and an actual fight between them is never, ever going to happen. Belfort has already made appearances on Dynamite before though, joining Mike Tyson and former UFC champs Henry Cejudo and Rashad Evans in a pullapart brawl with Jericho’s Inner Circle stable back in May 2020.
One intriguing possibility does exist when it comes to a fight though. A member of the Inner Circle just happens to be a heavyweight MMA fighter – Jake Hager. He is currently signed to Bellator but if they could make it work, it would be a fairly high-profile fight that would certainly garner some attention, and they’d have two organizations and their TV shows to promote it.
This is all very unlikely and is just a promotional tactic by Belfort, as usual. But he has to fight someone, right?
ONE will make their TNT debut on April 7th with live prime-time fights featuring P4P great Demetrious Johnson taking on the promotion’s current flyweight champion Adriano Moraes. Eddie Alvarez will also fight, taking on Iuri Lapicus.