Brandon Gibson is confident that we see [autotag]Carlos Condit[/autotag] back in the octagon this year.
Condit (30-13 MMA, 7-9 UFC) hasn’t competed since December 2018, when he suffered a submission loss to Michael Chiesa. He was scheduled to return last December against Mickey Gall, but a detached retina forced him out of the bout.
Condit’s longtime striking coach Gibson gave an update on the former UFC interim welterweight champion and revealed he expected “The Natural Born Killer” to return this year, and potentially as soon as this summer.
“Carlos is doing well,” Gibson told MMA Junkie. “He’s recovering from his injury, he’s continuing his training, and I know he’s definitely looking forward to fighting in 2020.
“He’s ready to sign a bout agreement I’m sure, with a full training camp. I think he’s definitely been in talks to maybe fight later this summer. We’ll see what the plan is. There’s been no offers yet that I know of.”
In the meantime, Gibson has been working with Condit, as well as numerous Jackson Wink MMA fighters, in his garage, keeping them sharp as they try to adjust their training during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, welterweight veteran Matt Brown expressed interest in a potential fight with Condit, and Gibson would like to see that fight happen, if possible.
They were scheduled to fight twice before – once in 2013 and the other in 2018 – but Brown was forced out of both matchups due to injury.
“I think the Matt Brown fight is always an intriguing matchup for Condit,” Gibson said. “They happened to be booked multiple times. I know Matt just fought this past week, but yeah, I think that would be a fan-favorite fight, and I think that would be a very good style matchup for Carlos, as well. So I’d definitely be open to that one. But yeah, we’ll see what kind of matchup offers we get from the UFC.”