Raphael Assuncao has been sidelined since the end of 2014 with a lingering ankle injury, but the UFC bantamweight contender is finally ready to return to active mixed martial arts competition. According to the Brazilian, he has been training and is completely healthy as of now, and is simply waiting for a call from the UFC.
Well, another call.
"I'm 100% right now, ready to return to action," Assuncao told BloodyElbow.com's The MMA Circus. "We're just waiting on the UFC now. T.J. Dillashaw and myself, we were offered a main event fight which was going to be the May 29 card. It looks like he was hurt then, so that fight didn't happen. But that was the original plan for my return, May 29, T.J. vs. myself. He wasn't ready. Somebody else took the spot."
"The funny thing is that, [Dillashaw] said in an interview that he was ready to step in if either Urijah or [Dominick Cruz] was hurt, he was ready to step up a week later, but for our main event fight, he wasn't ready. So try to figure that out," he said.
Assuncao says he is done with sitting back and waiting for opponents to come to him. He wants to be more active so he can earn title shot -- one he believes he already has earned. He says he's done with being the nice Brazilian he is known to be.
"No more Mr. nice guy. Oh, 'Raphael, nice guy, speaks three languages, talks to everybody, he's a nice guy, Americanized Brazilian guy.' No more nice guy. No more nice guy for me. I think this mindset is going to help me in my return. And that's all I'm thinking about right now."
LINK: 'No more Mr. Nice Guy' for Raphael Assuncao: 'I'm not here to play around anymore'
