Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson recently caught the MMA world by surprise when he announced his retirement, and after watching this past weekend’s UFC Fight Night 108 event he thinks that a few other stars would do well to follow suit.
“Watched some of the fights last night and I’ll tell you this, Know when to hang em up!” Johnson wrote on Facebook. “If you’ve already been knocked out in about your last 5-6 fights isn’t that your body saying ‘I’ve had enough’?
“I get that it’s a macho, I have bigger balls than you sport but man some of these dudes are going to forget their name by the time they’re 45. Good luck with that.”
‘Rumble’ doesn’t name any fighter specifically, but looking through the card it’s not too hard to pick out some likely candidates.
For instance, 35-year-old veteran Diego Sanchez suffered a tough knockout loss in less than two minutes of the first round against Al Iaquinta in the co-main event.
That’s actually the first time that Sanchez has been clean KO’d, but he was also TKO’d by Joe Lauzon less than a year ago, has lost five of past eight fights and is renowned for the numerous wars he’s had in the Octagon over the years.
However, it could be that Johnson is referring in particular to Jake Ellenberger, who suffered one of the most brutal knockout losses we’ve seen in the Octagon for quite a while after being caught by an elbow strike from Mike Perry.
The 32-year-old Ellenberger was still lying on the floor receiving treatment long after the fight was over, and it’s far from the first time he’s been defeated by strikes.
In fact, over the past five years Ellenberger has lost eight of his 12 fights and suffered five KO or TKO stoppages. That’s a huge slide for a fighter who had previously been a major player at welterweight and had only lost once inside the distance (by submission) in 33 professional fights.
