Tim Elliott (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

After spending much of the last year on the sidelines due to a knee injury and surgery, Tim Elliott is ready to make his UFC return. But, while Elliott could compete at 135, the former TUF winner wants to play a role in saving the promotion’s flyweight division.

Elliott (15-8-1) hasn’t fought now since December, 2017, when he submitted Mark De La Rosa. Recently the 32-year-old fighter told MMA Junkie that he’s healthy and ready to fight. But, while discussing what weight he would like to compete at, Elliott said this:

“I would like to get my first fight back, I would like to be a flyweight because I lost a lot of weight recovering from my surgery. I lost 15-20 pounds, and it’s hard for me to put it back on. I would like to have one at ’25 before I move back up to ’35.”

“…I don’t want to be a part of the guys that killed off the division. I want to be one of the guys that said, ‘Hey, I tried to stand up. I tried to keep the flyweights going,’ because I can fight at ’35, but there’s true ’25ers like Demetrious Johnson, he has no business fighting at ’35. He’s a tiny little dude. He needs to be fighting at ’25, and there’s hundreds of those guys that are really good, so I’m not going to be a part of abandoning the division. I’m going to stick around for as long as I can.”

In recent months there’s been extensive speculation that the UFC is looking to shutter the flyweight division. UFC President Dana White has been non-committal on whether the division will remain.