Former UFC Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold faces another former UFC Middleweight Champion in Chris Weidman in a rematch at UFC 230.
Rockhold has teased a move up to light heavyweight in the past, but now says he’ll only move up a weight class if the UFC offers him “something sexy.”
“I like the light heavyweight division – I think it’s for the taking,” Rockhold told MMA Junkie. “‘DC,’ the complication with him – he’s tossing and turning. I just want the thing to really solidify itself and iron it out. I want a matchup – I want a sexy matchup, and I want to get up there and I want to do some damage, and I want it to mean something. I don’t want to have to fight the best guy in the division in Alexander Gustafsson and have to backtrack if ‘DC’ doesn’t fight and I have to fight someone else lower – what’s the (expletive) point? I want it to mean something, and for me, everything is open right now. I don’t need to rush anything. Everything is open right now. I don’t need to rush anything. This is good. They’ve got to give me something sexy and entice me with something good. Nothing’s official.”
The former UFC Middleweight Champion has spent his entire professional MMA career at middleweight, also holding the Strikeforce Middleweight Title before coming to the UFC.
Although Rockhold says his professional MMA career is far from over, only fights that he finds interesting will keep Rockhold coming back for more.
“I’m nowhere near done fighting,” Rockhold said. “But it’s got to make sense. I’m not going to take off time and lose money to go fight. I love what I do, and I know I have a lot more to give in this sport. But these people need to get their contracts straight. They need to get their priorities straight with what they want and where they want to go. I know what I want. Everything is good. I’m not going to (expletive) lose money fighting. I’m doing very well outside the cage.”
UFC 230 takes place on Saturday, November 3 from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York with no main event announced at this time. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
