Almost two years after his last Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, Sgt. 1st Class Tim Kennedy is stepping back into the ring.
"I have a fight," Kennedy announced Friday via Facebook live. "I can't tell you anything about it, the UFC has to announce it."
Although Kennedy wouldn't say who, where and when he would be fighting, the former active-duty Special Forces sniper who now serves in the Texas National Guard hinted that his upcoming fight would make him a contender for the UFC middleweight title.
"It's going to be big," Kennedy said, adding that Michael Bisping, the current title holder, would have "no choice but to defend his title against me. After this fight, you can't say I shouldn't be the champion."
Until then, Kennedy said he's ready.
"I'm in shape, I've been training for a fight, I knew I had a fight coming up," he said. "I've been training non-stop."
Yoel Romero fights Tim Kennedy during a middleweight fight during UFC 178 at MGM Grand Garden Arena. M
Photo Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie/USA Today Sports
Kennedy's last UFC fight was a controversial loss Sept. 27, 2014, against Yoel Romero.
The two fighters faced off at UFC 178 in Las Vegas. Kennedy survived a rough first round, then appeared to have Romero, an Olympic wrestling medalist, solved toward the end of Round 2, scoring a flurry of hard, unanswered punches as the bell sounded.
Romero appeared out on his feet, desperately in need of the 60 seconds' worth of between-round recovery time. He ended up with almost 90 seconds, however, thanks to a slow-moving corner and an over-application of Vaseline to his face.
Romero's cornermen then failed to remove his stool, prompting heated instructions from a commission official. The referee then noticed a glob of Vaseline on Romero's face that was applied to a cut over his left eyebrow and called a cornerman back into the cage to wipe it off.
By the time the third round began, fans were booing the proceedings. Less than a minute into the third round, Kennedy was battered by Romero's blows and on the wrong end of a referee stoppage.
It was his first loss since his 2001 pro debut.
In addition to announcing his upcoming UFC fight, Kennedy also used Facebook to encourage fans to download "Range 15," the veteran-made, crowd-funded, star-studded zombie apocalypse movie that debuted this summer in theaters.
The movie will be available Aug. 16 on iTunes and Amazon, Kennedy said. It is already available for pre-order on iTunes.
"Right now it's the No. 3 iTunes movie in the USA," Kennedy said. "Hollywood wants this movie to fail. This is veterans making a movie about veterans for veterans. We want this movie to not be No. 3. We want 'Range 15' to be the No. 1 purchased movie on iTunes."
Motivated in part by the July 7 shooting in Dallas that killed five police officers and wounded seven others, Kennedy also on Friday announced a new initiative by his company Sheepdog Response to provide training to law enforcement officers across the country. Kennedy's father is a 30-year law enforcement veteran and his brother is still serving as a police officer.
"Sheepdog Response, we train law enforcement, military and civilians on how to not get murdered," Kennedy said. "In three to four weeks, we'll go to Dallas, but here's the tricky part. A lot of law enforcement can't send their guys to these courses. Not only can law enforcement not afford the tuition cost, sometimes they can't even afford the ammo or the gas to get there."
Tim Kennedy fights Michael Bisping in 2014.
Photo Credit: Eric Bolte/USA Today Sports
To help overcome that problem, Kennedy is setting up a non-profit that will allow people to donate money and sponsor a police officer who may want to attend one of the training courses offered by Sheepdog Response, Kennedy said.
At the same time, Kennedy also is finishing up filming the second season of History Channel's "Hunting Hitler," which explores the possibility, based on declassified FBI files, that Adolf Hitler escaped Germany into South America.
The second season is expected to air sometime in "the November time frame," Kennedy said.
"This season is sick," he said. "It's amazing, it's unbelievable."
Michelle Tan is the editor of Army Times and Air Force Times. She has covered the military for Military Times since 2005, and has embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Haiti, Gabon and the Horn of Africa.
