Anthony "Rumble" Johnson May Be Returning To The UFC As A Heavyweight

MMAFighting- Johnson’s manager Ali Abdel-Aziz told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour that “Rumble,” known for his devastating knockout power, is planning a potential comeback and they will be meeting with UFC president Dana White this week to discuss it.

“He’ll come back as a heavyweight,” Abdel-Aziz said. “We want him to come back as a heavyweight.”

Rumble said in May that he was going to be venturing into the marijuana business, which would take him away from focusing on MMA full time. He’s also been outspoken about concussions and the brain disease CTE as reasons why he doesn’t want to fight long term. Back in July, Johnson said he was not considering a comeback.

So much for retirement, huh? Anthony Johnson decided to call it a career after his second loss to Daniel Cormier this past May, right in the prime of his career, and cited the reasoning being concussions and “other business ventures”. It was a bizarre decision at the time, and confused us all, especially after he changed everything on his Twitter to indicate that he was going to play for the Los Angeles Rams.

He was not, in fact, Rams bound, but instead headed into the legal cannabis industry.

Yesterday, on the same day it was revealed that a legal cannabis company duped Shane McMahon out of 500 g’s, Rumble’s manager tells Ariel Helwani that he’s prrrrrrrobably coming back to the UFC as a heavyweight. Just connecting the dots here, but I think Rumble may have invested in a little “EnviroGrow” and just had his “o fuk” moment. Or that octagon was just calling his name and he couldn’t resist the barbaric human cockfighting. When you inflict as much violence on human beings as he has, it’s hard to live a normal life.

I like the idea of him at Heavyweight, too. That division needs all the help it could get, and it’ll be surreal seeing a former welterweight as a top threat against guys at 265lbs.