A disappointed Josh Burkman appeared to signal that he was going to retire on Saturday night immediately after a quick loss at UFC Fight Night 106, but then quickly changed his mind.
Competing on the Fight Pass prelims portion of UFC Fight Night 106, the 36-year-old lasted just 1.42mins against Michael Prazeres before being tapped out by a north-south choke.
That leaves Burkman with just a 1-6 record during his second stint in the UFC and during an Octagon interview with the winner, color commentator Brian Stann noted that Burkman had taken off his gloves and left them in the cage, taking that as a sign that he was retiring.
However, backstage Burkman clarified that though he thought about it briefly, he isn’t ready to hang up his gloves after all.
“I ended up not leaving [the gloves],” Burkman told reporters after the event. “I was going to leave them. I told my coach, I said, ‘Should I leave them?’ And I almost threw them down. And I think that was just … The UFC has been good to me. They’ve been really good to me and losing in that first minute, that’s tough, that’s never happened to me before like that. So I didn’t want to retire and say I’m done right then, because that’s like … but I’m definitely looking to what might be next.”
That being said, Burkman is the first to acknowledge that his latest axe is almost certain to signal an end to his time fighting in the UFC.
“I don’t think that’s my last fight. I think that I’ve got a couple more. But I know that my career in the UFC is over, and I know that I need to start looking on to what’s next.”
