Gegard Mousasi vs. Vitor Belfort? 'Dreamcatcher' says 'Phenom' stepped up ... so what happened?

Well, it sounds like Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was at least trying to salvage the UFC on FUEL TV 9 main event, which goes down this Saturday (April 6, 2013) at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.

When Alexander Gustafsson was cut in practice and deemed medically unfit to compete (all the gory details here), former two-time champion Vitor Belfort had volunteered to step in on short notice and fight Gegard Mousasi in his place.

That's according to a conversation "The Dreamcatcher" had with MMA Junkie:

"Vitor Belfort stepped up, and there were talks with my manager, and he wanted to take the fight on short notice. So we would have gladly accepted that fight. Wanderlei (Silva) was saying he wanted the fight, and we said yes. If I had done it to him, he wouldn't have appreciated it either. I'm in a situation where no one is informing me of anything, and this idiot is saying it for three days as an April Fools' joke. It's not funny. But what I can I do?"

So why didn't the Belfort bout come to fruition?

By his own admission, Mousasi isn't sure. The obvious answer is UFC on FX 8, where the Brazilian will headline -- at middleweight -- just over a month from now opposite Luke Rockhold (more on that here). Perhaps the promotion didn't want to rob Peter to pay Paul and opted to stick with homegrown substitute Ilir Latifi.

Or perhaps it was just another April Fool's Day joke, like this one.

Tee hee.