(“Thank you Jesus for letting me punch people asleep. bro.”)

Tatame.com recently caught up with Vitor Belfort to talk to him about what’s coming down the pipe and the UFC middleweight touched on a few interesting topics including the fact that an agreed upon match-up with Wanderlei Silva fell through for unknown reasons and his desire to make it on the UFC Rio card.

According to “The Phenom,” who says he has recovered from his UFC 127 loss to Anderson Silva and is in a “good state of mind,” in spite of UFC president Dana White’s recent assertion that “The Axe Murderer” accepted the bout, he says Silva decided that a fight with Chris Leben would be an easier test for himself.

“I’m still waiting [on my next fight]. They’ve offered me Wanderlei and I accepted it, but it seems that he didn’t want to fight me after all, so I’m waiting now for an opponent. Well, my friend, what can I do? The thong is a men’s whip and he needs to learn to talk less and fight more,” Belfort says. “But, what I can do, right? That’s life, bro, I don’t care about it. I’m focused for my next challenge. I don’t care about names, I don’t pick my opponents, and I always focus 100% in my next fight, independently of who I’ll fight with. For me it’s ok, I don’t live to build up my expectations on men, I hope things come through God, and that’s just life. Sometimes we lose, you can get surprise other times and we have to be prepared and ready for it, because we can’t guarantee results. I’m the kind of guy who likes to do what I say. I don’t like saying [things] and [not] keep up with [them].”

Although he doesn’t know whom he will face next, there are a number of options for Belfort to square off with in the coming months including returning middleweights Chael Sonnen, Yoshihiro Akiyama and Alan Belcher. As far as where he’s like to fight, Belfort says he has his eyes set on the UFC’s upcoming bout in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro as his most coveted destination.

“Fighting in Rio is everything I want. That’s the dream, to fight in Rio de Janeiro — in my country. Fighting for my people has always been my dream,” he explains. “Since I was one of the firsts on the sport in Brazil, it’s a kind of reward for me for everything I [have] done.

When asked about what he has learned in his 15 years in the sport, Belfort says that by competing he learned a lot about life.

“Now I’ve learned that everything in life, whether it’s inside or outside the octagon, doesn’t always happen the way you wish they did, and that the most important thing is that you let some things go,” explains Belfort. “That’s what I call being mature. Success is measured by titles, money, cars, but I don’t think that way, I don’t care what you have, but who you are.”