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- Apr 1, 2008
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Yeah well atleast it's all over. He left the door open for another defense, but then walked away. Still the majority of the time was spent because he was about to fight Stipe, got injured, then took a year to recover. These past 6 months were ridiculous though.The issue isn't really that he retires in itself. It's how he behaved around that situation, ducking the interim champion and also stringing things along to mess up the HW title scene. That's why this is a disgrace.
Then again it's quite mild compared to being the record holder in pissing hot in the UFC so things were already looking terrible.
Actually very interesting, because 2015 (when USADA started) champs either started losing or pissed hot.
FLW: DJ was immune
BW: TJ lost to Cruz, went 5-2 after
FW: Aldo lost to Conor, went 7-8 after
LW: Pettis dominated by RDA, went 6-7 after
WW: Hendricks, went 2-5 after. Lawler, defended 2x under USADA, then 3-5 after
MW: Weidman, defended 1x against a deflated Belfort, then went 3-7 after
LHW: Jones popped and NC with DC rematch
HW: Werdum beat Cain who looked unrecognizable, then went 4-3
Counting record after losing belt. ^^^^
So basically everyone at that time ended up losing or looking different before USADA. TJ regained the title for a bit, but popped later. Aldo technically regained his belt and had a decent performance after, but lost his aura. DJ was flawless.

I put a red line through when USADA kicked in. There was a total shake up all across the board after the testing went through. I feel like people don't talk about it enough how much it changed the sport.