Filed under: UFC
If not for his decision to have shoulder surgery last spring, Vitor Belfort would have already had his crack at UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva. Instead he chose to take care of a lingering injury, and now finds himself awaiting the winner of Silva’s title fight against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117, though he doesn’t sound like he regrets the decision one bit.
As the Las Vegas Sun reports, the surgery on Belfort’s labrum has allowed him to get off painkillers for “the first time in more than 18 months.” If you do the math on that, it means Belfort was fighting through injuries against both Matt Lindland and Rich Franklin. Good thing he ended both those fights early with first-round knockouts.
According to the 33 year-old Belfort, the decision to finally break down and have the surgery came not so much as a result of the pain, but rather a concern over career longevity.