After the MMA world was rocked by the fact that the Swedish MMA Federation didn’t clear UFC light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson to fight Gegard Mousasi on Saturday, things were up in the air if Mousasi would still be headlining the card or not.

After a callout from PRIDE legend Wanderlei Silva turned out to be nothing more than an April Fool’s joke, UFC President Dana White announced that “The Dreamcatcher” would be fighting the relatively unknown, Ilir Latifi.

With all that in mind, Mousasi let MMA Junkie know there was another Brazilian fighter he was expecting a fight with: Vitor Belfort.

"Vitor Belfort stepped up, and there were talks with my manager, and he wanted to take the fight on short notice," said Mousasi. "So we would have gladly accepted that fight."

The former PRIDE and Strikeforce champ indicated that he wasn’t sure why a fight with “The Phenom” never materialized for UFC on FUEL 9 in Stockholm, Sweden.

The logical answer is the fact that Belfort headlines UFC on FX 8 next month against former Strikeforce middleweight title holder Luke Rockhold, which takes place in Belfort’s native country of Brazil.

While it may very well never happen now, Belfort vs. Mousasi is certainly a very attractive bout on paper.

Belfort is currently the number 2 fighter in the UFC’s official middleweight rankings, while Mousasi is number 10 in the promotion’s 205-pound rankings.

All that can be said for sure is that due to suffering a last-minute a facial laceration, Gustafsson is out and Latifi is in against Mousasi in Saturday evening’s main event.