5 UFC fighters who retired in 2018

#2 Rashad Evans

Rashad Evans lost his last 5 UFC fights

Former UFC Light-Heavyweight champion Rashad Evans announced his official retirement from MMA in June 2018, a few weeks after suffering a pretty bad loss at the hands of Anthony Smith at UFC 225. It was Rashad’s fifth loss in a row, and after previously considering retirement a couple of years before, it was probably a case of the former champ hanging on for slightly too long.

A lot of fans tend to forget how good Evans was in his prime, but a glance at his record prior to 2013 tells the story. ‘Suga’ came off his victory on the second season of The Ultimate Fighter at 6-0, and went on to reel off 5 straight wins – and a controversial draw against Tito Ortiz – before stopping Forrest Griffin to win the Light-Heavyweight title in late 2008.

Sure, he lost the title in his first defense against Lyoto Machida, but after that he was still able to win a further 4 fights – including a huge grudge match with ‘Rampage’ Jackson – before failing in an attempt to dethrone former training partner and reigning Light-Heavyweight champ Jon Jones in 2012. That was probably the last time we saw Evans in his prime, as he went on to lose 6 of his final 8 fights, including that final horrible slide.

On the plus side for Evans, despite ending his career with a record of 19-8-1, only 3 of those losses came by KO or TKO, meaning he didn’t take a huge amount of damage inside the Octagon. Hopefully that holds him in good stead for a career as an analyst for the UFC on ESPN. Either way though, his decision to retire in 2018 was certainly the correct one.