UFC veteran Erick Silva still wants his Bellator debut in 2018.

After being paired up against fellow Octagon alum for Bellator 207, the 34-year-old was forced out of the bout due to an injury. However, the Brazilian explained to Portal do Vale Tudo, a new fight for the upcoming December card in Hawaii could be doable.

Furthermore, Erick claimed his healing has been better than expected and he could resume training normally as soon as next week.

“My recuperation is going well, I’m not feeling too much pain,” Silva said. “I’m taking it slow. The doctors gave me two months before I could spar hard, but since my healing is going better than expected, I’m already training lightly. For now, I’m only drilling physical and technical training. I can’t spar yet, because my ribs still hurt.”

“My wish is to fight in Hawaii, on the same card as Lyoto Machida. But, before I can talk to Bellator about it, I need to be 100% so I don’t go into camp already injured. I believe I’ll be more certain about whether or not I’ll be able to still fight this year in the next couple of weeks.”

His opponent was slated to be Lorenz Larkin at Bellator 207, in a welterweight tournament alternate bout. Larkin did make it to Bellator 207 and scored a unanimous decision win over Ion Pascu. Silva claims to still be interested in fighting ‘Da Monsoon,’ should conditions align for that again.

“Larking would’ve been an incredible fight for me, because I match up well with him. I watched his fight and felt sorry I couldn’t be there to fight him. I really studied him and he did everything I expected. I’m sure the result would’ve been different had he fought me. I still intend to fight, I don’t know if it would be this year, but I believe the fight will happen in the future.”

Erick Silva (20-9-1 NC) ended his UFC run with a 7-8 record. During the stint, the Brazilian fought some notable names in the welterweight division, such as Matt Brown, Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck. In his last outing, Silva scored a submission win over Nick Barnes, at LFA 45, back in July.