Tim Kennedy offered to fight Anthony Johnson at UFC 206

This week, unfortunate news surfaced that UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier had been forced out of his UFC 206 main event scrap against Anthony Johnson with a groin injury. While Cormier was forced out of the fight, it was revealed shortly after that he intended to return to the Octagon in March.

With Cormier’s withdrawal from the event, the UFC has been looking for a replacement opponent for Anthony Johnson, however given that Johnson has not only defeated, but knocked out, every fighter in the top 5 of the light heavyweight division, the promotion has been struggling to find him a replacement opponent.

Surprisingly, middleweight Tim Kennedy, who was slated to fight Rashad Evans at UFC 206 until Evans was forced out of the fight due to an inability to get a license to fight in Toronto, has apparently been working behind the scenes to fill in for Cormier to fight Anthony Johnson.

While it doesn’t appear that his efforts were successful, Kennedy took to Twitter to inform fans that he was indeed trying to step in to fight Johnson, and even send a little bit of a verbal jab Johnson’s way.

I offered to step in to fight @Anthony_Rumble at #ufc206 He is wisely waiting to fight for the title. Hope @dc_mma recovers quickly.

— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) November 26, 2016

Kennedy of course has been absent from the Octagon since his controversial 2014 loss to Yoel Romero at UFC 178, where he suffered the first defeat of his UFC career as he was TKOd in the 3rd round of their scrap after Romero and his corner used several sketchy methods to allow Romero extra time on the stool between rounds to recover form nearly being finished by Kennedy at the end of the second round.

Johnson on the other hand has of course been on a tear of the UFC’s light heavyweight division, going on a 3-fight win streak that has seen him KO all three opponents to bounce back from his UFC 187 loss to Daniel Cormier for the vacant light heavyweight championship back in 2015.