It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday: MMA Reaches Retirement Age for the Pioneers of the Sport

When Chuck Liddell officially announced his retirement on December 29, 2010, it seemed to come a few fights too late in the opinion of a lot of friends, family, and fans. However, it seemed to mark the time that makes sense for the history of the sport. There are several other fighters (and even current champions) that are getting to the point where the game is going to pass them by very quickly.
“Look, it’s like they say, if you’re not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven’t turned establishment by 30, you’ve got no brains,” is a memorable quote from the coming-of-age movie Swimming With Sharks (1994). The idea that when you are young you have the whole world ahead of you, and by middle-age it seems like your whole life has passed you by. 2011 may seem like that time for a lot of MMA fighters who have been in this sport most of their adult life. With the new wave coming in, and the old regime growing, well, old, it seems like this might be the year we see a significant amount of retired mixed-martial artists.
A few fighters that I believe will announce their retirement from the sport by the end of 2011 include Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, B.J. Penn, Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and possibly (if he ever loses) Anderson Silva. The reasons are all different, but the overwhelming theme is that all of these guys have different things that they want to accomplish now that they have accomplished just about every thing in the sport and age does play a very big role in the equation.
Let me first look at Mr. Couture. The man is literally an active legend. In the last few years he may be a bit overlooked, but he has been the most consistently great fighter over the last 15 years and competes at the highest level today even though he turns 48 in June. He is an action star on the silver screen, and a pretty good business man that owns his own gym, supplement brand, and clothing line (not to mention several other notable business ventures that include him). He doesn’t need to fight anymore. Hell, he even has a son that is fighting (Ryan, age 28) and is older than a lot of the “contenders” in the sport. The main reason he probably does fight is because he still can kick some serious ass. The deciding factor for him may be after his Lyoto Machida fight. If he loses, I think he will take that at face value and leave the sport. If he wins, he might get a shot at the title by the end of the year. So really, this decision is about 50%, but he may walk away as a current champion as well. Who knows?
Matt Hughes was just knocked out by B.J. Penn after only 21 seconds in their fight. Their rivalry is over. In fact Hughes even trained Penn for his last fight against Jon Fitch. Matt Hughes is one of the most dominant champions and most dominant fighters that the UFC’s Welterweight Division has ever seen. He has nothing left to prove. He is not a guy who is huge into doing something for the money. My guess is that this 37-year old “country boy” will retire, take some time with his family, and just work with other fighters as a mentor and coach for many, many years to come.
B.J. Penn is in this exact same boat. Multiple times Penn has been a champion. He has fought the toughest s.o.b.’s the sport has ever seen at two separate weight classes. He has accomplished every thing a UFC Lightweight fighter could ever hope to accomplish including a Welterweight Championship. The only problem here is that B.J. Penn is only 32-years old. However, with Penn, it has always been a matter of heart. Does he really want to keep competing at this level in the sport? If he doesn’t, then would he be willing to fight lesser competition to stay in the game? If the answer is no, then one would have to assume that he is ready for retirement. Let us not forget how popular Penn is outside the sport of MMA. He is a legend in Hawaii, and he is one of the few fighters with “crossover” skills such as TV, film, and, basically, whatever he wants to do. I hope he fights a little longer, but I’d be happy seeing him kick some stuntman’s asses as well.
Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko has reached a crux in his career much like the real “Last Emperor” of Russia (Nicholas II) where it seems as though his reign is collapsing on him from all sides. Fans are aborting the bandwagon and turning on him. The media is retracting their statements on his greatness. Fighters are beating him up in the cage, and he is seemingly less interested in fighting due to these factors. This is the Bolshevik Revolution in the MMA world. Emelianenko is now a family man who has a company to help him financially (as long as they have a business future), he is a national hero in Russia, and he is a very intelligent fighter with a kind heart. Emelianenko doesn’t need to fight. However, his legacy may be tarnished, and he might feel the need to rectify that before going out. The only thing that stands in his way there are these Rasputin-like fighters of the modern-era of MMA where it seems like all the bullets in the chamber, all the lethal weapons, and torture methods can’t bring them down for too long. They just keep coming. They are, to borrow a Kanye West line, “Taller, better, faster, stronger.” It may be time that Emelianenko abdicates the throne.
Then we come to “Big Nog”, also known as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. This man has been a legend in Brazil and Japan long before anyone knew his name in the U.S. or abroad. He was the unstoppable force—never getting knocked down or knocked out. Then, with a monstrous victory by Frank Mir, all that changed. Nogueira’s psyche was altered that night, it appeared. Nogueira has fought some of the best the sport may ever see and done a great job as a PRIDE Champion and a champion for the people of Brazil. This is a guy who was run over by a truck as a child only to become a monstrous force in the Heavyweight Division of MMA years later. Like I said, he was the unstoppable force. Now at 34, he is out of his prime, and the new fighters just seem to want to put that “Big Nog” notch on their fighting belt. I think it is okay that Nogueira goes out before he becomes the “journeyman” fighter that is an inevitability. He has a career as a coach and Brazilian ambassador to the sport that will live on for a very long time.
And, finally, I come to “The Spider.” Anderson Silva has won 14 straight fights and 9 of those have been title fights. That means that Silva has fought the champion of the #1 contender about 65% of the time over the last 5 years. That’s an accomplishment most fighters can never brag about especially when they have never lost a fight in the UFC. However, I think this very well may be the year that Silva does lose. At 37-years old, age will start to slow down his reflexes which Silva has made his bread-and-butter over the years. He already has stated several times his disinterest in the lifestyle that surrounds the sport, and he may just want out for his own sanity. I don’t think he will go out without losing at least one fight though. It’s a very difficult thing to do. Of all the fighters in the history of the world, only 7 fighters (Jimmy Barry, Jack McAuliffe, Ricardo Lopez, Rocky Marciano, Sven Ottke, Terry Marsh, and Pichit Sithbangprachen) went out as and undefeated champion, and they were all boxers. Silva has lost in his career, but it was not in the UFC and not as champion. So, this one is a bit of a further stretch than the rest, but it is not out of the realm of possibility.
We could be seeing an historic year for the MMA world as far as the changing of the guard from the older champions to the up-and-coming, undefeated, monster “crossover” athletes that the sport has yet to see. The future of MMA is like the current state of the NFL or NBA. We will see the very best athletes in the world competing in this sport, and they will also have the same set of very dangerous skills early in their career that the veterans of the sport had to learn in their adult life. In fact, we could see this “switch” occur in just a few weeks when Jon “Bones” Jones takes on light heavyweight champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. If Jones wins, then he may reign as champion for a long time, and the contenders will only be getting older and falling further behind the grade.