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After retiring from the fight game in 2017, former two-time Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light heavyweight title contender, Anthony Johnson, has officially re-entered the United States Anti Doping Agency (USADA) drug testing pool.
That’s according to his manager Ali Abdelaziz, who recently confirmed to ESPN that “Rumble” is now in the system and will be tested for the next six months before he is eligible to fight again. That means the earliest Johnson can compete is in February of 2021.
When he does make his highly-anticipated return to action, the hard-hitting big man will be once against fighting at Light Heavyweight.
Since 2012, the only losses Johnson suffered were at the hands of former UFC champ-champ, Daniel Cormier, once at UFC 187 in 2015 and then again at UFC 210 two years later. Both times it was for the 205-pound title, and both times “Rumble” lost via submission choke. In fact, five of six of Johnson’s losses have come via rear-naked choke, so it’s no secret why the hard-hitting big man prefers to let the action play out on the feet.
Plus, he hits like a Mack truck, so there is that.
Unfortunately for fight fans, a much-desired fight against former 205-pound champion, Jon Jones, is no longer in the cards since “Bones” vacated his title and is in the process of packing on the pounds to make his heavily-anticipated jump up to the Heavyweight division.
Nevertheless, Johnson will still have plenty of challenges at 205 pounds (except for this man) and now that the division is wide open, he has the opportunity to finally achieve his UFC championship dreams.
Any ideas as to who should be the (un) lucky man to welcome “Rumble” back to the hurt business?