Jon Fitch Gets the Green Light to Return, but is UFC 139 on Tap?

Jon Fitch rocks Thiago Alves at UFC 117

After months of dealing with a shoulder injury, Jon Fitch is back in business.

“I’m back! Dr. Kavitne gave me the ok to fight,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

Fitch has made no small secret of his desire to fight on the UFC 139 fight card that takes place in his city of residence, San Jose, Calif. His teammate, Cain Velasquez, is set to headline the fight card in his comeback, which will be a UFC heavyweight title defense against Junior dos Santos.

While Fitch was unavailable for comment, sources close to the fighter said that he doesn’t have a comeback date set yet, just that he did get the green light to get back to work.

“I’m at a point in my career where I need to be fighting main events and main event fighters,” Fitch told MMAWeekly.com in early June. “And if you don’t have a belt, currently, or you haven’t owned a belt in the UFC, I’m not really interested.”

He was angling for a rematch with B.J. Penn, whom he fought to a draw at UFC 127 earlier this year. Penn has since been scheduled to face Carlos Condit at UFC 137 on Oct. 29 in Las Vegas, so that fight is out of the question.

“What guys want to do and what happens are two different things,” UFC president Dana White told MMAWeekly.com recently in response to a question about the opponent’s Fitch wanted to face. “If we can give him all champions and ex-champions, we’ll see. He’s gonna have to fight who we say he’s going to fight.”

White fell short of suggesting any opponents for Fitch’s return.

Ranked as the No. 2 welterweight in the world and having lost only one fight, to UFC champion Georges St-Pierre, in nearly nine years, Fitch isn’t going to get any “gimmee” fights anytime soon.