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Rashad Evans Announces Retirement From MMA

June 26, 2018 | Posted by Joseph Lee

During Ariel Helwani’s MMA show, which streamed on ESPN’s Twitter account, Rashad Evans announced his official retirement from MMA after losing his last five fights, including a 53-second KO loss to Anthony Smith at UFC 225. Here are highlights via MMA Junkie:

On retiring from the sport: “It’s hard. I don’t want to go out losing, or nothing like that, but at the same time it’s what I need. It’s what I need to do because I feel like I have other things in life that are calling me to go, too. I thought how hard it would be for me to really say these words or really make a statement about it, but I needed to. It’s part of me healing and just accepting the what-is. I can’t fool myself any longer about it.”

On moving on: “I feel a little unsettled about the way my career ended, but I think I had to end this way. I don’t think I would have stopped if it didn’t end this way. Having it end this way, it was hard, but there’s no mistakes in life and it was necessary. I trust the process in life and I trust the universe, and God, and I know it’s going to decide what’s best for me.”

On if he’ll ever fight again: “I can say for certainty that I won’t fight again. I feel like there’s other things in life I want to do. I know there’s other things in life I want to do. … It’s so much that goes into it all. At one point in my life I felt as if fighting was everything – it was everything. But now, I put life second. But now life is taking over and fighting is becoming second. Competing in a sport like MMA where you have a lot of guys who haven’t been to the top of the mountain, who haven’t experienced the things I’ve experienced, they’re hungry for it. For me, I was just lukewarm.”

article topics :

Rashad Evans, Joseph Lee