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Like in many other sports, the athletes who participate in top-level MMA often don’t know when it’s time to call it a day. Because MMA by definition is “prize-fighting” – as in, these athletes only get paid when they fight – we’ve seen countless numbers of fighters holding on for too long, usually getting badly hurt more times than is necessary before finally hanging it up.
Sometimes though, there have been fighters who knew exactly the right time to step away from the sport – and rather than go out on their shield, they retired off the back of one final win, a win often impressive enough to make the fans wish they’d stuck around a little longer.
Here are 5 UFC fighters who retired after winning their final bout.
#1 Chris Lytle
Despite finding himself in the thick of the UFC Welterweight title picture on more than one occasion, Chris Lytle was a rarity in the post-TUF era of the promotion in that he was always only a part-time fighter. While moonlighting at the very top level of MMA, Lytle was actually a full-time firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department.
It was perhaps the fact that professional fighting was never his primary source of income that caused Lytle to decide to hang up his gloves in 2011 arguably before he’d really begun to decline as a fighter. After all, between June 2009 and September 2010, Lytle had been on a four-fight winning streak and was booked to fight Carlos Condit in a fight that had clear title implications at UFC 127 in February 2011.
Condit withdrew from that fight though, and in a big upset, Lytle was defeated by late replacement Brian Ebersole. Evidently, the loss of any kind of title hopes – and a wish to spend more time with his four children – forced Lytle’s hand, and so he announced that his next fight, a main event clash with Dan Hardy, would be his last inside the Octagon.
And surprisingly, despite being behind to the British fighter on the scorecards, Lytle managed to pull out one final victory by catching ‘The Outlaw’ in a tight guillotine choke in the dying seconds of the last round. To make his retirement even sweeter, Lytle received both the Fight of the Night and Submission of the Night bonuses for his performance – and walked away from the UFC with a solid record of 10-10.
#2 Forrest Griffin
The retirement of one of the original Ultimate Fighter winners and longtime fan favourite Forrest Griffin was a bit of a strange one, in that it came after one final victory, but wasn’t actually announced after that fight at all. His win over Tito Ortiz came at UFC 148 in July 2012, and he was actually booked for another fight – first against Chael Sonnen, and then Phil Davis when Sonnen withdrew – at UFC 155 that December.
Griffin ended up pulling out due to a torn MCL, though, and suggested he’d be back in action in 2013. However, rather than return to the Octagon, the former Light-Heavyweight champion announced in May 2013 that he was retiring from competition – and was subsequently inducted into the UFC’s Hall of Fame two months later.
Griffin ended his UFC career with a record of 10-5, and that strange final fight against Ortiz – a fight that saw Griffin largely outstrike ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ despite being knocked down twice – proved to be the last time we’d see him in action.
Since his retirement, Griffin has worked behind the scenes at the UFC, primarily helping to develop the promotion’s Las Vegas-based Performance Institute. Known for his penchant for taking punishment and still coming forward, it’s likely that he walked away from competing at the right time.
#3 Urijah Faber
Widely recognised as one of the greatest lighter weight fighters of all time and as one of the men who proved to the power-brokers at the UFC that Featherweight and Bantamweight fighters could draw money and become popular with the fans, Urijah Faber stepped away from actively competing in MMA at the end of 2016.
His career ended on a high though, as he outpointed fellow Bantamweight veteran Brad Pickett – who also went on to retire following one more fight – to win his in his final Octagon appearance in his hometown of Sacramento, California. Faber – who still fit his moniker ‘The California Kid’ despite being 37 years old when he retired – ended his career with an overall record of 34-10.
10 of those wins – and 6 of his losses too – came inside the UFC, where he never quite reached the top of his division despite having four shots at the UFC Bantamweight title. Interestingly, he was beaten on all four occasions by the same two men – Renan Barao, and his bitter rival Dominick Cruz.
By the time of his retirement it was clear that while Faber was still one of the best in the world at 135lbs, he couldn’t quite compete with the very top fighters any more – as evidenced by his September 2016 loss to Jimmie Rivera, his first in a non-title fight at 135lbs. Faber still coaches at Team Alpha Male and regularly appears as an analyst on UFC programming.
#4 Matt Brown
Popular brawler Matt Brown has teased a return to the Octagon on numerous occasions over the past year or so, so who knows how long his retirement will actually stick. For now though, he belongs on this list as a fighter who walked away after a big win, as he viciously knocked out fellow veteran Diego Sanchez in November 2017 before hanging up his gloves.
Brown debuted in the UFC in 2008 following 3 years on the regional circuit and an appearance on the 7th season of The Ultimate Fighter, and instantly carved out a reputation for himself as an exciting brawler. It wasn’t until 2012 though that he really began to shoot up the rankings at 170lbs.
Once on the cusp of being cut by the UFC following a 3-fight losing streak, Brown beat Chris Cope to begin 2012 and didn’t look back, putting together a run of 7 straight wins – including one over future title challenger Stephen Thompson – before losses to Robbie Lawler and Johny Hendricks, both of whom held the UFC’s Welterweight crown, derailed his title hopes.
3 losses in a row in 2016 again had him on the verge of ending his career in entirely the wrong fashion, but his big victory over Sanchez – which came via a crushing elbow strike in the first round – meant he was able to walk away from his final Octagon appearance with his hand raised.
#5 Georges St-Pierre
Very few fighters walk away from the UFC after a win, so legendary former Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre is a total anomaly as not only did he hang up the gloves after having his hand raised, but he’s actually done it on two separate occasions – assuming you classify him as retired, of course.
The first instance came back in November 2013, as GSP – who had made a record 8 defenses of his Welterweight title – defended his title successfully for a 9th time against Johny Hendricks and then decided to step away from active competition, vacating his title. It wasn’t announced as a retirement per se, but the general consensus was that he probably wasn’t coming back.
It was almost 4 years later when St-Pierre did return to action, this time at 185lbs, to challenge Michael Bisping for the UFC Middleweight title. And despite never fighting at Middleweight before and not being in any fights for such a long period of time, the Canadian looked as good as ever and choked Bisping out to become a dual-weight champion.
Since then though – citing various health issues including colitis – GSP has vacated that title and once again gone back into retirement. And at 37 years old and with no concrete rumours of a return, it looks like this time he’s gone for good – meaning he’ll probably be the only UFC fighter to retire twice, both times off the back of a win.
