{"id":704218,"date":"2026-05-30T17:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T17:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/704218\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T17:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T17:56:08","slug":"cain-velasquez-lays-out-terms-for-potential-mma-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/704218\/","title":{"rendered":"Cain Velasquez lays out terms for potential MMA return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent interview on the WEIGHING IN podcast, Cain Velasquez opened up about a possible return to fighting, but only if certain financial demands are met.<\/p>\n<p>Cain Velasquez had a recent sitdown with fellow American Kickboxing Academy member Josh Thomson on the latter&#8217;s WEIGHING IN podcast. During the pair&#8217;s conversation, Velasquez spoke about fighting again, which he&#8217;s somewhat open to, so long as he&#8217;s well-compensated, despite being out of the MMA game for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n<p>Cain Velasquez won&#8217;t rule out fighting<\/p>\n<p>Not since a 2019 sub-minute knockout loss to the monstrous Francis Ngannou at UFC on ESPN 1 has Cain Velasquez been seen inside the octagon. He is now 43 years old, and hasn&#8217;t fought, in any capacity, in seven years. However, he hasn&#8217;t completely ruled out MMA, so when longtime training partner and <a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/news\/josh-thomson-signs-exclusive-multi-fight-contract-with-bellator-mma\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fellow ex-fighter<\/a> Josh Thomson asked him if he had a wishlist of fighters he&#8217;d love to face, Velasquez focused more on the check a promotion could write him (19:08)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No wishlist, as far as a person , but if the money&#8217;s right, the money&#8217;s right, but it has to be really good. It has to be really damn good for me to do that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When Thomson continued to bring up a wishlist of opponents, even highlighting all-time great heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, Velasquez affirmed his lack of desire to face a specific opponent, and that only a large enough purse would draw him back into MMA.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The money has to make me want to do it, because I don&#8217;t&#8230; as I&#8217;ve told this before, I&#8217;ve said this before, it&#8217;s not&#8230; I don&#8217;t want to do it. You know, I have other interests now, but the money really has to make want to do it, and I don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s willing to pay that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Velasquez seems comfortable with retired life after his <a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/news\/cain-velasquezs-trial-postponed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent prison stint<\/a>, and his priorities have shifted from combat sports, having previously competed as a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/news\/cain-velasquez-opens-as-favorite-in-wrestling-match-against-brock-lesnar\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pro-wrestler<\/a> after leaving MMA. He was also once hailed as a potential candidate for the greatest heavyweight of all time due to his well-rounded skillset and prior dominance inside the octagon as the UFC heavyweight champion. He famously faced Junior dos Santos in a trilogy, which began with &#8216;JDS&#8217; knocking him out in round one at UFC on Fox 1 to dethrone him as champion.<\/p>\n<p>However, Velasquez followed that up by beating him in a lopsided unanimous decision win at UFC 155 to regain the belt, and a rubber match at UFC 166, where he defended it in another dominant display, TKO&#8217;ing dos Santos in round five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a recent interview on the WEIGHING IN podcast, Cain Velasquez opened up about a possible return to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,80626,48,641,1855,638,82,640],"class_list":["post-704218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-cain-velasquez","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-heavyweight","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}