‘Reinvented’ Belfort: I love to fight again, had been burned out

Vitor Belfort, now 40 and a veteran of 40 fights, won a decision vs. Nate Marquardt at UFC 212 on Saturday night. It snapped a three-fight losing streak. UFC 212 was supposed to be The Phenom’s final fight, but after training at TriStar and winning via decision for the first time in a decade, Belfort’s plans have changed.

We are reinventing Vitor Belfort again, said Belfort at the post-fight press conference, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. So, we are changing a lot of things in the game, a lot of things I was doing wrong. Not rushing, taking my time. We had more power in the third round than the first round. That’s a good thing.

Every victory, you have to be happy. I want to knock him out and I hurt him pretty bad in the second round, in the third round. He was throwing some kicks just to buy time. I was making mistakes not checking the kicks. But I wanted to fight three rounds. I wanted to go all the way. I want to enjoy the fights.

Something stirred in me, so I love to train again, I love to fight again. That’s something that’s been away from me for my last three fights, to tell you the truth. I was burned out.

Belfort said he recently listed to a speech my Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was he found illuminating.

Everyone is a failure,” said Belfort. “Beyonce, before she became a hitmaker, she failed. Everyone’s got failures. Failure is just a step to victory. Unfortunately, now we’re used to everything fast.

Unfortunately, not everything works like SnapChat or Instagram or Twitter. There’s certain things that take time and you have to have patience and confidence to know that everything is going to work out.

Belfort said he has one fight left on his UFC contract, and wants to fight on, but will leave the negotiations to his team.