Photo: UFC middleweight title challenger Luke Rockhold hanging out with Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift and Luke Rockhold

Luke Rockhold has the biggest fight of his career coming up in December.

But let’s face it – December is a long ways away, and that leaves plenty of opportunities in the meantime for fun stuff, for non-fight stuff … for hanging out with Taylor Swift.

Rockhold (14-2 MMA, 4-1 UFC) will challenge middleweight champion Chris Weidman (13-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) for his title in the co-main event of UFC 194, which takes place Dec. 12 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

With nearly four full months before that fight, Rockhold, a former Strikeforce middleweight champion, recently posted a picture on his Instagram account of him with music mega-star Swift.

Could Rockhold be a closet fan of Swift, a seven-time Grammy winner who has dominated the pop and country charts for nearly a decade? He hasn’t walked out to any of her music, instead choosing to troll his opponents in his most recent two fights. Against Lyoto Machida in April, he walked out to the theme from “The Karate Kid” since Machida is the most well-known karate-style fighter in MMA history. Against Michael Bisping this past November, he walked out to “The Battle of New Orleans” since Bisping is British, and that battle was the last in the War of 1812 between England at the United States.

He walked out to “Motivate” by Cruzmatik at UFC 172, a rap song that had a video featuring him training.

But even if he’s not using Taylor for his walkout songs, he might be bumping her tracks when he’s not in public.

Swift’s latest album, “1989,” was released 10 months ago and has sold more than 5 million copies in the United States alone and is pushing 9 million copies worldwide. Three singles from the album reached No. 1 on the “Billboard” Hot 100 charts.

She currently is on tour with Haim and Vance Joy and this week starts a five-show run at Staples Center in Los Angeles. She just wrapped a pair of shows in Arizona, as well as two in Santa Clara, Calif., not far from Rockhold’s hometown of Santa Cruz.

So if Rockhold walks out to “Shake It Off” in December against Weidman, well, now we’ll have a big clue as to why.

For more on UFC 194, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.