<div class="Article" style="float: left;">
<table>
<tr style="vertical-align: bottom;">
<td>
<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=299999" target="_blank">
Belfort rises from the ashes
</a></h3>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<a href="/go=news.detail&gid=299999" ><img class="photo" src="http://img.mixedmartialarts.com/method=get&rs=50&q=75&x=30&y=56&w=310&h=165&ro=0&s=vitor-belfort-02-04-11-8-15-33-301.jpg" /></a>
<strong class="ArticleSource">[yahoo.com]</strong>
<div style="clear: both; line-height: 1px;height: 1px;"> </div>
</div>
<blockquote>
For years, there were always two things one could count on about Vitor Belfort: He was talented enough to defeat any fighter in the world, and he was apt to lose his concentration at the most inopportune times.
Belfort, by most standards, has had an enormously successful career. He’s a former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion and has wins over elite fighters such as Randy Couture, Wanderlei Silva and Rich Franklin on his 19-8 record.
There has always been a sense, though, that what you got from Belfort wasn’t all you could get. He oozed with talent, suggesting there was another level he could reach when he was so inclined to push himself.
“Sugar” Ray Sefo, one of Belfort’s coaches at Xtreme Couture, conceded that Belfort was an enigma early in his career, when he entered the UFC at 19 and made jaws drop with things he could do in the cage.
“He was a very young guy and he went through life a lot like any other youngster, and his life took some turns and he wasn’t focusing 100 percent on his fighting,” Sefo said. “There are a lot of people in Brazil who doubt him because of his past. But he’s a changed fighter. Look at his last three or four fights. He’s knocked out everybody.”
But if he knocks out the next man he faces, Anderson Silva, when they meet on Saturday in the main event of UFC 126 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, he’ll capture the UFC middleweight championship and complete one of the great riches to rags to riches stories in mixed martial arts history.
He’s the youngest man to win a UFC fight and he won ithe heavyweight tournament at UFC 12 in 1997. He captured the UFC light heavyweight championship when he stopped Couture on a cut in the first round of their bout at UFC 46, only weeks after his sister, Priscilla, was kidnapped and believed murdered.
But after the Couture victory, Belfort went into a downward spiral. He was just 2-5 in his next seven fights and culminated that streak by not only getting dominated by Dan Henderson at PRIDE 32, but being caught for using anabolic steroids.
Belfort said his turnaround, which includes wins in his last five fights, began when he accepted God into his life.
But he’s no longer the distractible, coasting fighter he once was. He made not have the same blazingly quick hands that he did when he came into the game, but at 33, he’s far more understanding and far more dedicated.
“I know what I can do, I know what I can’t do and I know what I have to do,” Belfort said. “I’m comfortable with who I am now. That’s a big thing for me.”
