Cain Velasquez has said he is ‘ready to go home and be with loved ones’ after his release from prison on bail, eight months after being arrested on an attempted murder charge.
On 28 February, the former UFC heavyweight champion was arrested in connection with a shooting in San Jose. Velasquez, 40, later pleaded not guilty to the charge of attempted murder.
Velasquez claimed that the man he had allegedly shot had molested the former mixed martial artist’s four-year-old son. Velasquez also sued the man and his family, who own a daycare centre where the alleged molestation occurred.
After being denied bail numerous times in the months since, American Velasquez was finally released from prison on a $1million bail on Wednesday (9 November).
Following his release, Velasquez told KRON-4: “I just feel blessed, ready to go home, be with the loved ones, family, friends and make something positive of this whole situation.
“Just thank you to everybody who had my support. I love all of you. Just always continue to be better as a person, always do good things and just make something positive of this terrible situation.
“My family and I, we’re going to do that.”
Per MMA Fighting, a condition of Velasquez’s release is that he is confined to home detention with GPS monitoring. The 40-year-old will also reportedly be unable to keep weapons in his home. Furthermore, Velasquez is said to have been ordered to undergo treatment for ‘traumatic brain injury and CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) at a nearby facility close to his home’.
Velasquez competed in the UFC between 2008 and 2019, before featuring in the WWE.
The American won the UFC heavyweight title from Brock Lesnar in October 2010, before losing it to Junior dos Santos in his next bout, in November 2011. Velasquez later regained the title in rematch with Dos Santos in December 2012, eventually losing it with a defeat by Fabricio Werdum in June 2015.
After beating Travis Browne in July 2016, Velasquez did not compete in mixed martial arts for nearly three years. He returned against Francis Ngannou in February 2019, losing via first-round TKO.
Later that year, Velasquez debuted in the WWE, before leaving the professional wrestling company in 2020.
