UFC 112: Vitor Out, Could Sonnen Step in To Face Anderson Silva?

Dana White just confirmed the news on his Twitter feed that Vitor Belfort is indeed out of his main event title fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 112.

After the plague of injuries that cursed the UFC during the back end of 2009, this is not good news. Especially as many fans viewed Vitor as the first real threat to Anderson Silva's belt in a long time.

With out wishing to brush over Belfort's forced absence too quickly, could the UFC be incredibly lucky and have a ready made replacement?

Step forward Chael Sonnen.

There would be no better time to make this fight with Sonnen fresh off the performance of his career after dominating Nate Marquardt at UFC 109. The out spoken Republican has been making a lot of noise recently about his dislike for Anderson and the anticipation for this fight could be huge if it were made.

The biggest obstacle of course would be the short turn around for Sonnen, who is medically suspended from contact until March 9th after his fight with Marquardt. However we all know he is a game fighter so this shouldn't an issue for him as he always has great cardio and it would still give him a month to prepare.

So will April 10th in Abu Dhabi could end up being put up or shut up time for the Team Quest fighter?

If the UFC makes this fight it would allow them to turn a negative into a positive as this fight currently holds a lot more interest then the Vitor fight which never fully captured the imagination of fans.

Will Dana White make this happen and let all of us look forward to one of Anderson's most interesting title defenses in a long time - fans can only sit back and hope.