Vitor Belfort has made the rumors official and announced that his hand injury will prevent him from fighting Matt Lindland at Affliction: Day of Reckoning. Hopefully EliteXC will allow Jake Shields to fight Lindland. Belfort is planning to fight the winner of Lindland/?? sometime early next year.

The official announcment was made by Affliction VP Tom Atencio in an interview with MMA Weekly:

“Vitor is out, I spoke with him I think yesterday and he told me,” said Atencio. “Actually, it was on Tuesday we had a conversation for about an hour or so, and yeah, I guess he broke his hand in two places is what he told me and he had been having 2, 3 and 4 opinions on it. He finally got the opinion that he wanted I guess and they told him to step out for a while.”