He was more like just an athlete in a combat sport rather than an actual fighter. His performances were boring and safe and he refuses to come back to fighting even after "winning" a bogus decision. Not a real fighter.
Did he get into the cage and fight? If so, that makes him a fighter, just as anyone who gets on the ice and plays hockey (in say the NHL) is by definition a hockey player. You can say you found him a boring fighter, but its simply counter factual to say he didn't fight.
In fact, you say "come back to fighting" yourself, which suggests at one point he was fighting, which means by definition he was a fighter.
Examples of not real fighters: Sylvestor Stalone (good actor in fighting movies, didn't fight), Robert De Niro (better actor), all the people on Sherdog who claim to have fought but never have. Examples of real fighters: anyone who has actually fought.
He definitely fought safe. That makes him pretty much like what every drill will tell every boot is a model warrior: you aim at carrying out your orders and completing the mission. You do not take unnecessary risks as a warrior just to make things more interesting. Can that be boring? Definitely. Is that bad for sport? Sure, its why sports play around with rules, trying to give offense advantage over defense. But is it smart? Absolutely, and that's what being a warrior (real life) and a fighter is all about: you aim to win, and without taking unnecessary risks. You know those movies where soldiers are sent out to take huge gambles, possibly leading to massive losses? They're just movies, real warriors are taught to follow the plan, and can even be court martialed for deviating too much from them.
In terms of entertainment, his value is measured by his PPV numbers, which were pretty good, though not the best (in his day Lesnar was the best). Which means that many found him boring, but enough found him interesting to make a good profit for the UFC, so they were happy to keep him around. Boring is subjective. Its like saying say classical music is boring; some will agree and never listen to it, others will disagree and will listen to classical music. There's nothing objective about boring or entertaining, everyone decides that for themselves, and the best way to get a measure of how many people find something interesting is to see how many are willing to spend money on it. Only elementary school kids think everyone has to like the same kind of music, or the same books, or the same fighters. Adults know its subjective.
As for not coming back, I'd have thought you would say that's good; why would you want to see someone you think is boring come back? If there's a band whose music you didn't like, would you care if they stopped touring and producing records? Its actually pretty odd you criticize him for that - I'd have thought you'd be applauding his retirement (one less boring fighter for you in the UFC has to be a good thing).
