Grizzled UFC veteran Diego Sanchez has moved quickly to shut down talking of retirement following his brutal KO loss to Matt Brown in the co-main event of UFC Fight Night 121 in Virginia on Saturday night.
Just hours after Brown’s vicious elbow strike spread him out on the cavas, Sanchez took to social media to make it clear he had no intention of hanging up his gloves.
“I love y’all fans hope you guys liked the fight, what can I say but it hurts to let down the family,” Sanchez wrote on Twitter. “But that’s the fight game. I still have fight in me I’m not done yet I know that @iamtheimmortal what a classy competitor.”
That’s going to come as a disappointment to some obeservers who believe that the 35-year-old needs to step away from the sport after a career in which he’s forged a reputation as one of the sport’s toughest fighters.
There was a time when Sanchez possessed a granite chin and the only loss due to strikes on his record in the first 14 years of his career came when he was TKO’d due to a cut in a title fight with BJ Penn back in 2009.
However, Joe Lauzon finally cracked Sanchez’s chin last year at UFC 200, TKO’ing him 97 seconds and since then he has suffered two first round knockouts that provide clear evidence that he can no longer take a shot.
Therefore, whether he wants to continue fighting or not, we are drawing close to a time when UFC officials might have to step in and make the decision for him.
