Stipe Miocic is targeting his return to the world famous octagon.

The UFC heavyweight champion has been very vocal about how he is not pleased with his UFC contract situation. In fact, he has been doing so since last year. His displeasure with the promotion can be traced back to his big win over Alistair Overeem at UFC 203 in Cleveland, OH.

This event marked a home state showdown for the then newly-minted heavyweight champion. Miocic picked up the win over the former Dream and Strikeforce champ via first round KO to retain his belt. As a result of that win, he pulled $200,000 less than the contender for his trouble.

Although Miocic did fight again under that contract deal which included knocking out Junior dos Santos at UFC 211 in May of this year, the UFC champion has not been seen inside the cage since then.

However, Miocic could be returning before the end of this year. The UFC Champion recently spoke with Ariel Helwani in a recent interview on the MMA Hour (transcript via Bloody Elbow) about his desire to return to the cage.

“You’re making money off me in my hometown, and you’re giving the man that’s a challenger who’s never won the title in the UFC, you’re giving him more money?” Miocic told MMA Fighting back in January. “It definitely should change. But the fact that my challenger made more money than me in my last fight was just kind of a slap in the face.”

“We’re talking,” Miocic replied when asked about his current status with the UFC. “I’m probably looking at December or the end of January.

“Definitely, it’s all good,” he continued. “I’ve got a great management team and they’re doing everything they’re supposed to. We’re talking, it’s all good.”

He gave his thoughts on the potential different opponents in the division as well; although Miocic doesn’t have a specific fight already lined up, he did express his interest in facing Cain Velasquez at some point. “We’re both wrestlers,” Stipe explained, “we both push the pace, we’ve got great cardio and we like to stand and bang – it would have been an exciting fight.”

Also during this interview, he responded to the recent reveal by UFC President Dana White that the MMA promotion had been hoping to book a bout between the heavyweight champion and Jon Jones. This would’ve been a great fight. However, that was before the news of Jones’ latest drug test failure came down the pipeline.

“I had no idea they were talking about it. Listen I’m usually last to know, which is fine. If they would’ve had me fight Jon Jones, I would have fought him. I don’t care but they never brought it to my attention.”