Former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le will enter the UFC and debut against Vitor Belfort. The UFC has not announced the fight, but Belfort said on his website late Friday the matchup was in place.

Belfort vs. Le, according to Belfort, will take place Nov. 19 at UFC 139 in San Jose, Calif., which is Le's home training base. Le joins Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem and welterweight champ Nick Diaz as fighters who have switched promotions since Zuffa announced its purchase of Strikeforce earlier this year. And light heavyweight champion Dan Henderson is widely believed to be returning to the UFC, as well.

Le (7-1, 7-1 Strikeforce), who will turn 40 next spring, has been out of action since a knockout win over Scott Smith in June 2010. That victory avenged his only loss, which came seven months earlier when Smith knocked him out.

All seven of Le's pro MMA wins have come by stoppage, including the March 2008 middleweight title fight against Frank Shamrock in which he broke Shamrock's arm with a barrage of kicks and won the belt. Le is also unbeaten in his professional kickboxing career.

But after going 18 months without defending his title, Le relinquished the belt to focus on an acting career. Le has appeared in several movies, and will appear in the forthcoming film "The Man With the Iron Fists" along with Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu and Dave Bautista, "Batista" of WWE wrestling fame, who has been long rumored to be pursuing an MMA deal with Strikeforce.

Belfort (20-9, 9-5 UFC) will be back to work quickly after his last outing, in which he made quick work of Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 133. Belfort handed Akiyama a knockout loss just 1:52 into the first round. That fight was Belfort's first since being knocked out by Anderson Silva in a middleweight title fight at UFC 126.

Belfort is now 2-1 in his return to the UFC, including a knockout win over Rich Franklin. After not fighting in all of 2010, Belfort will now fight three times in 2011, making this his most active period in five years.

UFC 139, though not yet made official by the UFC, will take place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. The last time Belfort fought there was for Strikeforce against Alistair Overeem, who like Le also just signed with the UFC.

UFC 139 originally featured a heavyweight title main event between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. But that fight was moved to the promotion's first show on the Fox network one week earlier.

 

Just confused...Ive read that Its in San Jose..Anaheim..That JDS and Cain accepted to fight a week early?

That the bout is gonna show on FOX...does it mean its free?

 

Interesting...

I wonder how Cung Le will do. Nice guy though. Met him a HIN a few years ago.

My concern would be how Cung Le would fair against a top tier UFC fighter. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a great fighter, if not one of the best, but for some reason, I haven't seen too many people outside of the UFC do well at a UFC event.

We'll see.... I'd like Cung Le to win, but for some reason, I feel that Belfort will out manuever and out power him.

 

Belfort like to strike (more like rush you with quick foward punches) and cung le has great stand up...will see how it goes down...

BTW...if i remember correctly.."Rice eatah"s girfriend is cung le's causin....i remember him saying something like that..

 

too bad hes never online lol

 

lol seriously...i actually saw him in town like ...3 or so days ago...clean *** bugeye..

 

the ufc has a **** load of interesting fights coming up..

cung le vs belfort
brock vs overeem
tito vs Nog
diaz vs penn
cain vs jds
Sonnen vs Stann
sure theres more...

 

I like to support local fighters, but Belfort is one of my favorite fighters ever. If this is confirmed I'm buying tickets the minute they go on sale.

 

sorry cung is gonna get broken in this fight. vitor via knockout in the first round.

 

fixed for you.

 

cung le is weak

belfort is going to toy with him till he wants to knock him out

 

YEP,the Cain and JDS fight will be free on FOX. From what i hear though they're only gonna show that fight but i'm not sure cause it wouldn't make sense to show the Main Event for free but charge the Co-Main event and the other fights. So I'm hoping they show the whole card and not just the Main Event for free.

 

I know the asian community loves him but he hasnt even faced real competition. He was just a posterboy for strikeforce to get the asian community all hyped up.

The most notable win that hes had is against Shamrock which is laughable whereas Vitor has had to face some stiff competition w/ wins again Akiyama, Lindland, Frankin, Wanderlei and a lot more.

Cung should save face, fake a injury and just go back to doing movies.

 

Thats the one fight Im waiting for. I know my boy Ubereem looked weak against Werdum and I wont make any excuses for that but Brock is going to get manhandled so bad in this one. One punch to Brocks face and hes going to tuck his tail between his legs and cover up like hes done every other time.

 

Your being a little harsh bud ... Unless you've actually trained yourself, you'd know that anything can happened in at fight... Cung Le has NEVER lost in his professional kickboxing career... Shamrock might of been passed his prime but is smart enough and more well rounded than Le and couldn't face him... Remember how Silva knocked out Belfort.. A crazy kick. Cung Le throws kicks like like a boxer throws punches.. A reason everybody has had a difficult time with him is because of his unique stand up game.... Belfry is old school.. Same fight he as then.. Stalk you.. Stalk you and BAMMM explode forward with forward punches... That's his style.. Whatever the outcome is you can't count either of them out.. It's gonna be an interesting fifth and I like how Dana puts these unique fights together.. Btw akiyama is a joke... Wanderlei got ko'd by Leben that's says it all Franklin is nothing unique or impressive..Lindland .... What's has he done?