Barn Cat is back in the UFC: 'I wanted to be back in the sport of MMA'

Riding his trusty steed "Thunderhorse" back into the UFC comes favorite cult-fighter of yesteryear, Tamdan McCrory. "The Barn Cat" as he's also known was something of a fan favorite in his first run through the ranks of the Octagon where he went 3-3 with wins over Pete Spratt, Luke Cummo, and Ryan Madigan. But, after a split decision loss to John Howard back in 2009, McCrory vanished.

In a recent interview with MMAFighting, McCrory went into some of the details of his prolonged absence:

"I never really meant to take all that time off. It's just the way circumstances lead you in life. I got so far out of the mix. For a time, I didn't want to fight. There were times I didn't want to, then there were times I wasn't able to, and there were other things...injuries, problems. I just could never get the momentum enough to get competitive, or I just couldn't find the right fights, or I couldn't find someone who'd fight me, or I couldn't find somebody who'd want to pay me."

And then, suddenly he was back. This time, with Bellator and this time at middleweight. It seemed as though he was lined up as a footnote in Brennan Ward's potential rise to stardom under the Viacom banners, but McCrory showed that whatever the reasons for his time off, it hadn't taken the edge off his skills. He knocked Ward cold in just 21 seconds and then turned around and submitted Jason Butcher just five months later. And now, as the UFC confirmed in a recent press release, he's back in the big show.

Here's what McCrory had to say about his UFC return:

"I left a title shot in [my last promotion] to come to the UFC," McCrory said. "If I wanted to win that belt I could have stayed and done it, but I wanted to be back in the sport of MMA, not the MMA entertainment business."

Also according to the UFC's press release, McCrory will be staying at middleweight and is looking to make his return sometime around October-November. So, time to jump on board your hatredcopters, because the Barn Cat is about to bloodrocute the Zuffa middleweight division.