Josh Thomson shares an update on his return, eyes two rematches in the future

Former Strikeforce lightweight champion Josh Thomson (22-9 MMA) has gone 2-1 since joining Scott Coker and Bellator MMA in August of 2015.

The American Kickboxing Academy staple scored a third-round submission finish (arm-triangle choke) over Mike Bronzoulis in his Bellator debut in September of 2015.

Thomson followed up that win with an electrifying knockout victory over Pablo Villaseca at Bellator 147.

In his most recent effort this past February, Josh Thomson suffered a controversial second-round knockout loss to Patricky Freire after being struck with a head-butt.

The 38-year-old mixed martial arts veteran, Thomson, was a recent gust on BJPENN Radio where he talked to host Kinch about a number of different topics.

Kinch asked Thomson when fight fans could expect to see him back in the cage and whether or not fighting again in 2017 was a possibility.

“We’ll see man. It was supposed to be me and Benson (Henderson) here in San Jose on September 23rd. I had just put an offer in on a house and they weren’t looking at any of the offers for about another week or two. Bellator needed to know within a couple of days, so I told them if I do get the house I wouldn’t be able to fight. Otherwise I’d have been moving right in the middle of camp and I’m not going to do that to myself. So we had a conversation and talked about it and we were like, lets just wait and see what happens with the Pitbull and Benson fight and we’ll see how it all pans out after that.”

Kinch asked Thomson who he would prefer to rematch if given the choice.

“Both of them. I have my eyes on a rematch with Pitbull as well. The outcome of that fight was really upsetting. From what I understand the California Athletic Commission is possibly bringing it back up again because I was never actually given written notice or notification that I could have appeared for the appeal. So from what I understand they’ll be bringing it back up for basically a re-appeal in August. Hopefully they’re going to let me know in the next couple days. Regardless, with Ben and I, I feel like that’s a fight I definitely want to get back. With the Pitbull fight I think given the circumstances, I’m not taking anything away from him. I think he’s tough, him and his brothers are like the pillars of Bellator. They’ve been there for so long and they’ve been having great fights for so long, they just never got the name recognition until Coker got there and started building the promotion. He’s one of those guys that when he’s fighting in Bellator I turn my TV on. If I know he’s fighting or if I know his brother is fighting, those are the guys that I’ll automatically turn my TV on for. But in this situation, I do feel like and I do recall that a lot of what happened in that fight was due to the head-butt. From what I understand and what I’ve been told, what the decision was based off of was that they felt I was still in the frame of mind after I got head-butted. My point was that they said I was still able to continue fighting and I said, ‘Yeah but if you go back and watch the Miesha Tate fight when she fought Holly Holm, she was completely choked out and still throwing punches.’ Does that mean she was still in the frame of mind to fight? Does that mean the ref shouldn’t have stopped the fight because obviously she was out, but she was still throwing punches. When you’ve been doing it for this long and our bodies are tuned to do the things that we do naturally, I mean, I got dropped from the head-butt, I looked to get up and then from that moment on I don’t remember the rest of the fight. I actually had to go back and watch, I didn’t even know I got up and threw one or two more punches and shot a takedown. So what I understand with the appeal, they are saying that I got up and still tried to fight. That doesn’t mean shit. It just goes to show that our bodies after 20 years of doing this every single day, the true fighters and true athletes who have actually dedicated themselves to this sport, they’re going to do exactly what I did. They’re going to get their asses up and keep going, their just built like that. Holly was completely out and her arms were still throwing punches, that’s what happens, man.”

Kinch then asked Josh if he expects to fight for the title in 2018.

“Yeah, I said this the other day on my podcast, I’m always one fight away from a title shot. Get one win and I’m in. I’m not really worried or concerned with that type of stuff, but look if I were to beat Pitbull and he loses to Benson, and then Benson fights for the title next, I’m basically next in line. If I fight Benson and Pitbull fights the winner of Primus and Chandler, if I beat Benson then I’m next in line for the title shot. I’m always one fight away, all you have to do is fight the next best guy and you’re one fight away from being the champion. So yeah, is that on my mind? Of course it is. Am I looking to rush it? No, I’m not. Theres this whole scenario I thought of and I’ve talked about on my podcast. Gray Maynard was part of Team AKA, I was part of Team AKA, and Khabib was part of team AKA. Gray was ranked at like number 2, I was ranked number 5 or 6, and the Khabib was ranked like 9 or 10 I want to say. Everybody was asking if the three of us would fight each other because we’re all out of the same gym, blah blah blah. This whole thing of speculation and what would possibly happen if we were to fight each other. What ended up happening was Gray lost to TJ Grant, TJ ended up being out indefinitely because of a concussion, and then I ended up fight Benson after Pettis didn’t show up for my title fight. So I ended fighting Benson and lost, now Khabib is next in line waiting for his title shot. So many things can happen between now and then. I don’t want to speculate about who’s fighting for the title next in Bellator, I think every guy in the lightweight division wants to fight for the belt.”