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They say you can't keep a good man down and that it's hard to say goodbye. Well in one fell swoop Anthony Johnson has pushed his return to the UFC one step closer.
The 36-year-old Floridian has just re-entered the USADA testing pool. That means he's now just six months away from an actual date in the octagon. USADA has confirmed that he's already taken his first PED test.
Anthony Johnson set for his big return to Mixed Martial Arts
Anthony Johnson who walked away from MMA after losing to Daniel Cormier (for the second time) at UFC 210, again tapped to the former champion's rear-naked choke. Going into that fight, Daniel Cormier had even predicted that would happen.
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Late last month Anthony Johnson stated:
"Honestly, I miss the sport. I miss competing. I know at one point I was against guys coming back, from retirement. You just see them get mopped up. B.J. Penn came back, and got mopped up. I've seen everyone that came back out of retirement get mopped up. I just don't want to be one of those guys to get mopped up. But I still feel good, I got no injuries."
After walking away from the sport, the former title challenger has kept himself busy. He started his own medical marijuana company and he's also worked part-time for Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. Most noticeably though he put on a ton of muscle mass and toyed with the idea of powerlifting competitions.
After Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. had signed to fight in September (before the fight was pushed back) Anthony Johnson even teased on twitter he would consider a spot on the undercard:
Recently though Rumble has been working on getting that weight down again to compete at his old division. So it looks like there will be no Anthony Johnson versus Jon Jones or Francis Ngannou anytime soon. But it would be interesting to see if his 16 KO's out of his 22 career wins would translate up a division.
If he truly wants to test himself against the new generation of young lions at light heavyweight, he may get his shot right off the bat. He could in theory walk into a fight with the winner of this Saturday night's fight between Johnny Walker and Ryan Spann or possibly Anthony Smith.
