The UFC champ who retired on his terms

BJ and Bas both left with/gave up their belts.
It's not retiring but they did it on their terms I'd say.
.....maybe Bas did retire, not sure without checking first.
 
Ya I see Bas did "retire" as UFC HW champion.
Then he had that 1 last fight years later.
 
You wont find many. One,because the UFC's contracts tend to prevent anyone from retiring on top,and 2) Fighters generally dont quit while their ahead. If your like GSP,another fight is another million dollars waiting.

that's not true, theres no contract that can force you to fight if you want to retire
 
that's not true, theres no contract that can force you to fight if you want to retire

I know that but trust me,UFC doesnt want that to happen. Anderson,after he lost to weidman didnt wanna fight for the belt no more,and the UFC put pressure on him to rematch him,because they wanted the money that fight would bring. GSP just wanted to take a break,and they were like "FUCK YOU,your stripped of the belt,piece of shit"
Randy couture,frank shamrock and other guys who should be enshrined as legends,are treated like garbage or not acknowledged at all by the ufc just for not doing what they wanted.
 
Very few guys go out on top. In sports most guys go on and decline. Sampras went out right in tennis, won the US open then retired. He went out good. Lennox Lewis of course in boxing.

Floyd may go out on top. I could see Ronda retiring undefeated.

Most come back for money or glory.

GSP is the closest. Avenged his losses and retired as champ BUT he might be back.

Bas was forced through injury but retired champion I guess.
 
GSP certainly left on his terms.

Agree! It's a whole other level to maintain that greatness for that long. Burn out kicks in and GSP certainly got out at the right moment! RONDA and Conor better take notice. The pressure those two are under right now is probably greater than that of what GSP or Silva faced.
 
BJ and Bas both left with/gave up their belts.
It's not retiring but they did it on their terms I'd say.
.....maybe Bas did retire, not sure without checking first.

Think Bas has said he was considering moving down to fight after Randleman but injuries curtailed it on inside mma.

Injuries forced him to retire then he came back to fight Kimo on tha tKing of the streets event. kimo got popped so Bas fought Warpath, leg kicked him to death and promptly retired again.
 
Dude,, Edgar was 6 years after he won the belt

If there's ever someone that didn't retire on his own terms, it's BJ Penn, scrambling around weight classes and trying weird new stances and footwork.

I mean, he left as champion at one point, yes, but it wasn't retiring on his own terms. It was a hiatus from the UFC before returning and eventually going out Chuck style.
 
Georges did it just about as perfectly as can be expected. Personally, I hope he never comes back.
 
In terms of leaving the UFC, sure.

But as for his actual retirement? He was getting his ass kicked at the end.

So you're saying they put the champ up against a legit competitor?

Wow how horrible!

I guess they should have given him some creampuff to stomp huh? :rolleyes:
 
I'm struggling to understand wtf TS is trying to say
 
So you're saying they put the champ up against a legit competitor?

Wow how horrible!

I guess they should have given him some creampuff to stomp huh? :rolleyes:

Who said anything about asking for him to fight creampuffs? Where do you get this stuff?

He got his ass kicked in most of his late-career fights and retired not on his own terms...



Anyway, read the thread, because it seems like you think I'm talking about GSP when I'm talking about Frank Shamrock.
 
Who said anything about asking for him to fight creampuffs? Where do you get this stuff?

He got his ass kicked in most of his late-career fights and retired not on his own terms...

He went out on a win over a tough competitor. You can't really ask for much more than that.
 
There are people suggesting that GSP retired because of all the doping tests ... Is that really on his terms? Also, imo he didn't deserve the nod against Hendricks, so he was lucky to still be the champ.

People also suggest that GSP was abducted by aliens before the Hendricks fight, and that they have invisible unicorns in their back yards - hard to take people's unproven suggestions seriously.

The fight with Hendricks should have been a draw - 2 & 4 clearly Hendricks, 3 & 5 easily GSP though not as dominant as Hendrick's rounds, round one was razor thin.

Hendricks did more damage (though not that much more - you don't lose the final round if your opponent is seriously hurt; GSP should have been hanging on for the bell instead of finishing strong if he was seriously hurt, which just shows that people exaggerate damage done, unless GSP has magical regeneration powers), and under Pride rules Hendricks would have the win. Under the unified rules it depended completely on the first round - which really should have been a 10-10 round except judges hate to give draws.
 
The competitive high of winning is intoxicating. Pretty hard to step away from that, especially if you think a good win is still inside you. And then there's money...very few of these guys are ever in a financial position to be able to retire comfortably.
 
Lennox is a very good parallel. GSP and the Hendricks fight were very much like Lennox and Klitschko.

And Serra was his McCall.


I disagree. Although Lewis was losing that fight by points, he started winning the last few rounds before the fight was stop due to the cut over Klitschho's eye. That cut was caused by a punch which should be credited as a knock out punch would. If that fight with Klitschkho would had not been stopped than Klitschkho would had been seriously hurt wit the fight ending by knock out. And Lewis tended to be a slow starter anyways. His fights against Ray Mercer, Frank Bruno and Shannon Briggs are good examples of this. Once he got the feel for the fighter than that's when shit was about to go down.
 
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