Cain Velasquez has said he would have left MMA if his new contract offer from the UFC wasn’t worth his time.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez has said he would have been prepared to walk away from MMA had the UFC not had offered him a new contract that was worth his while.
Velasquez will return this Sunday from a lengthy back injury that has kept him out of the octagon since July 2016, facing Francis Ngannou in the main event of the UFC’s debut card on ESPN. The 36-year-old said his return was dependent on a new UFC contract, and once both he and the UFC decided on a deal, Velasquez was ready to return to the cage.
Speaking to MMA Fighting and other press members at a media day on Tuesday, Velasquez discussed his eagerness to get back into the octagon and his sheer passion for the sport.
“It all had to make sense as well for me to come back,” Velasquez said. “Again, it takes a lot out of me from a training aspect. But I love it. I love what I do, I love to go out there and train. I love to train with high intensity. I’m so competitive. I’m so competitive in just my daily life, that’s just how I am. Even when I go in to train, I try to back off a little bit. It’s just the competitiveness in me. To go out there and to win, even in small things. It’s good and bad, but again when everything goes right then you get the best Cain out there.”
Only fighting twice in the last five years, it’s unclear the number of fights included in Velasquez’s new deal. Regardless, the former champ is happy with his new contract.
“It’s something that I’m happy with, something that for me and my family makes sense,” Velasquez said. “Now that we got all that squared away and I took the time to get everything right, I’m ready.
“If it didn’t make sense, I’d be able to walk away and I would be OK with that. There is life after fighting. It’s all about that. I have kids now. It’s all about that longevity. It just had to all make sense. It has.”
UFC on ESPN will take place this Sunday, February 17th, at the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. The fight between Ngannou and Velasquez will headline the card.