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UFC Heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez eyes summer return, won't fight teammate Daniel Cormier

On Tuesday's episode of UFC Tonight, Velasquez spoke to Ariel Helwani about when he'll be ready to get back in the Octagon and defend his title.

Victor Decolongon

Cain Velasquez shocked most of the MMA world at UFC 155 when he dominated Junior dos Santos for 25 minutes to reclaim the UFC Heavyweight title. After rocking dos Santos with a big right hand in the first round, Velasquez never relented and took back the belt he lost over a year before.

Saturday night at UFC 156, Antonio Silva followed Velasquez's lead by pulling off a huge upset over Alistair Overeem. After giving up the first two rounds to the former K-1 HW GP champion, Bigfoot teed off on The Reem with a series of brutal blows that even had referee Herb Dean cringing before he stopped the fight. At the same time he put down Overeem, Silva squashed the UFC's plans for the next Heavyweight contender.

With his next contender in question, Cain talked to UFC Tonight about when he wants to return and who he definitely won't fight:

I was thinking this summer. But I would not fight [Daniel Cormier]. He's my coach, teammate and my friend.

The two have trained at AKA together for years and have long held that they'd rather not fight each other. In fact, Cormier intends to head to Light Heavyweight after his fight with Frank Mir at UF On Fox 7 in order to avoid facing Cain altogether.

The UFC hasn't given out much information yet on who Velasquez will face next. Bigfoot should be in contention coming off a top 5 win, but few are interested in that rematch after he was so convincingly beaten by Cain at UFC 146.

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