Josh Thomson Not Ready To Retire Yet

In an interview with MMA Junkie, Josh Thomson (22-8 MMA, 2-0 BMMA) said that even though he’s been fighting for over fifteen years, he has no plans to retire right now. Here are highlights:

On when he might decide to retire: “You know, I really don’t want to put a stamp on it. I’ve learned a lot from watching a lot of top professional athletes play football and basketball. You don’t want to make an emotional decision in an emotional situation. I just want to see how I feel each camp, see how it goes and when that decision needs to be made, I’ll make it.”

On the wear and tear of training: “It’s not the fight that gets you, it’s the fight camp that gets you. So every fight camp is different as your body gets a little bit older. You start seeing a couple injuries here and there that weren’t there the time before. You start adding up and thinking to yourself if you want a quality of life after fighting. I think that’s what a lot of the fighters are seeing now. Especially now with some of the concussion protocols and stuff that people are talking about with Jordan Parsons having CTE found (following his death). People are wondering what’s going to happen to them later. Given all the research that was developed after the movie ‘Concussion’ came out, fighters are paying attention. You hear a lot of them talking about not sparring three days a week or two days a week. Maybe they’re only sparring once a week hard, the rest of the time they’re working drills and techniques or just sparring the last month before a fight.”