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The UFC has plans for Wanderlei Silva and his return to the octagon following his injury, unfortunately the former Pride middleweight champion has other plans for his next fight. UFC president Dana White wants Silva to face Vitor Belfort at the Las Vegas card on July 2rd (UFC 132) but Silva wants no part of this bout and has yet to accept. Silva instead has asked to face Chris Leben next and has taken to twitter in hopes to persuade White to book the fight.

“I don’t want him to fight Chris Leben. I want him to fight Vitor Belfort. Vitor Belfort has accepted the fight, wants the fight, now we’re waiting for Wanderlei to accept,” White told MMAWeekly.com after UFC 128

Silva has been out of action for 13 months now and was last seen in the octagon at UFC 110 when he defeated Michael Bisping by unanimous decision. Now that he’s all healed for the injuries that sidelined him, he is holding up his return by trying to hand pick his next opponent. Let’s not forget that Silva has already turned down a proposed bout with Brian Stann because he didn’t want to be the “bad guy” against the Military veteran, all coming from a guy with the nickname “the axe murderer”.

Silva and Belfort have fought in the UFC before at UFC 17.5 back in 1998 and yes that was 13 years ago. Their past might just be the reason Silva doesn’t want the rematch with Belfort, as Silva was quickly finished just 44 seconds into the fight with a barrage of strikes.

Belfort is coming off his first career knockout from a front kick to the face by the UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva at UFC 126. He’s now ready to get back onto the cage and though he has expressed an interest to fight Michael Bisping has accepted the fight with Silva.

So Wanderlei Silva wants Chris Leben, Vitor Belfort wants Michael Bisping and Dana White wants Silva to face Belfort. Hopefully they can stop playing matchmaker and sort this out so the fans can see these fighters back in the octagon.

HT: MMAWeekly.com