Al Iaquinta has revealed that he may have fought for the last time after suffering a TKO loss against Bobby Green at UFC 268 earlier this month.
The defeat was the third in a row for the 34-year-old, having previously dropped decisions to Donald Cerrone and Dan Hooker a couple of years ago, and it’s left him feeling like his desire to compete is no longer what it once was.
“I’m thinking that’s it, man,” Iaquinta said on his ‘Call Me Al’ podcast.
“That’s the way to go out. I mean, obviously, you want to go out on a win, but this sh*t’s not worth it, dude. You saw Michael Chandler and Justin Gaethje fight. Those guys, they beat the hell out of each other. That wasn’t worth it.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know. It was the first fight that I really gave up in. He didn’t knock me unconscious, and I kind of turned and I covered up. I was still conscious; I knew what I was doing. But I kind of just wanted out. That was it. I realized that he hit me hard – it probably was not going to be a good night for me. I was not confident in my preparation, in my cardio, my wrestling.
“These guys are training hard. These guys are training three times a day, two times a day, really hard. My body just can’t hold up to that any more. That’s the first time in my career ever that I gave up in a fight.”
““This is the first time in my career I was leading up to it thinking, ‘I just don’t want to get hurt,’” Iaquinta continued. “You can’t have that attitude going into it. You’ve got to be a savage motherf*cker to really get in that cage. The mindset you’ve got to have is, ‘I don’t give a sh*t about my body.’ Back in the day, I could’ve broken my nose, anything, and I would’ve kept going. Now? Eh, I live in a nice house, I got investment properties, (the UFC) is not paying me enough to sacrifice my body for the rest of my life. That’s the way I kind of feel about it.”
If the loss to Green was to be the last of his career then Iaquinta would bow out of the sport with an overall 14-7-1 career record, with his biggest wins coming against the likes of Jorge Masvidal, Kevin Lee, Diego Sanchez and Joe Lauzon.
