Vitor Belfort vs. Anthony Johnson Booked For UFC 142 in Brazil

Anthony "Rumble" Johnson

Johnson moves to middleweight, faces The Phenom

The world’s largest welterweight is finally making the transition to middleweight, and he’ll have quite the welcoming party waiting for him.

UFC officials confirmed today that Anthony “Rumble” Johnson has finally elected to make the move up in weight and will face Vitor Belfort at UFC 142 in Brazil.

The event takes place Jan. 14 at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro. It is headlined by a featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes.

Johnson ran up a 10-3 record as a welterweight, but the difficult weight cut often drained him of energy going into fights. His last two fights saw him score victories over Dan Hardy and Charlie Brenneman.

Belfort suffered a knockout loss to Anderson Silva earlier in 2011, but rebounded this summer with a vicious knockout of Yoshihiro Akiyama. He was rumored to coach the first-ever season of “Ultimate Fighter Brazil” against Silva, but UFC officials debunked the rumor.