UFC fighter Jordan Mein has announced his retirement from the sport at just 25 years of age.
The news comes as a big surprise as Mein was a talented, establish welterweight who’d been fighting at a high level now for several years in both the Strikeforce and UFC promotions.
However, despite still being relatively young, Mein does have a long history in combat sports and had already fought professional more times than many competitors a decade older than him, with an overall 29-10 career record already in the books over 9 years – meaning he’s been a pro since he turned 16.
Mein was coming off a second round TKO loss against Alves in a fight that he looked to be winning up until he took a kick to the body he couldn’t recover from. Prior to that had enjoyed back-to-back victories and had produced a 3-2 record overall in the Octagon.
Mein’s biggest victories came against veterans like Mike Pyle, Dan Miller, Josh Burkman and Joe Riggs, but while he sometimes looked like having the potential to take his career to the next level he generally had come up short so far when facing higher-ranked opponents, losing out to the likes of Matt Brown and Tyron Woodley, while in his first ever MMA fight he was defeated by an equally fresh faced star in the making, Rory MacDonald.
On paper it seems a shame that he’s hanging up his gloves now as it would appear he still has lots of time left for improvement and he could yet have gone on to better things, but at the same time who’s to say what toll fighting since the age of 16 has taken on him both mentally and physically.
Mein follows in the footsteps of 26 year-old Frankie Perez who also announced his retirement from the sport at the weekend immediately after claiming his first win inside the Octagon.
