Luke Rockhold eyes a former UFC heavyweight champion for his next fight

Luke Rockhold wants to fight a former UFC heavyweight champion in his octagon return!

Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold is on a mission to score a fight with former UFC heavyweight title holder Fabricio Werdum.

Ariel Helwani broke the news earlier today stating the following on Twitter.

Rockhold is pushing hard for a fight with Werdum. He's willing to move up to HW. Asked UFC for it this week after FW's #TheMMAHour comments.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 22, 2017

UFC said Werdum has plans for this summer, but Rockhold isn't letting this go. He really wants to settle their old Strikeforce beef ASAP.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 22, 2017

Rockhold’s desire to fight Werdum stems from a beef that dates back to their days spent under the Strikeforce banner.

“Rocky” discussed the beef in an interview with MMAJunkie Radio in January:

“We have an old Strikeforce beef. Fabricio didn’t really have respect for people at the time, I think it was in St. Louis. I’m not going to get into it, throw him under the bus too bad, bad he pretty much was being a piece of shit that night and I demanded some respect. I was a young Strikeforce challenger at the time. And he was like, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ And he treated me like a piece of shit. He was just being a dick and I stood up or myself and he tried to act like I was being the bad guy. And ever since, he just kind of said some shit and I don’t rally have respect for the guy. I respect him as a fighter, he’s tough and he lays it out there. He’s earned respect in that manner, but outside of that, meh. I’d fight him in a heartbeat. I think I’d beat him, too. Easy.”

Luke Rockhold has not competed inside the octagon since UFC 199 in June of 2016 where he lost his middleweight championship to Michael Bisping suffering a first-round knockout at the hands of “The Count”.

Prior to the rather shocking setback, Rockhold had strung together an impressive five-fight win streak which was capped off by a TKO victory over Chris Weidman at UFC 194 which earned Luke the promotions coveted 185-pound title.

Shortly after Luke’s comments in January, Fabricio Werdum fired back at Rockhold in an interview with Combate (as transcribed by BloodyElbow):

“Everyone in the fight business knows I’m not arrogant at all. He is the one who is quite arrogant, actually. He said he would fight me, huh? The problem is that I only fight men, not wimps. He should ask Velasquez if he has any chance against me. I don’t know what happened, but honestly, I never really cared for Rockhold. I don’t like people who are full of themselves. If you’re the man, you don’t have to show it to other people. He has his head up his ass. I’ve never really talked to him. When I fought Velasquez, he told me some sh*t before the fight. After I won, I passed by him and asked him ‘Where’s the fake belt now?’ and all he said was ‘good job.'”

Werdum is currently on standby for May’s UFC 211 event, just in case something happens to either champ Stipe Miocic or challenger Junior dos Santos, who are scheduled to meet in the pay-per-view’s main event.

Would you like to see a grudge match between Luke Rockhold and Fabricio Werdum put together by UFC officials? Sound off PENN Nation!