MMA is a cruel and fickle mistress, and old fighters don’t walk away with a retirement plan and a gold pocket watch like normal employees or ahem “Independent Contractors.”.
Instead far too often a fighter’s ultimate descent is a series of “retirements” and returns which get uglier and uglier until eventually they understand that they’re finally done, actually for real.
Or as is as often the case, no one is willing to pay them to fight anymore.
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In this article, we’ll be taking a look at 5 times that MMA fighters have retired, and returned only to learn that maybe they were better off in retirement.
Let’s get started.
#5 BJ Penn
Pick any of BJ Penn’s last 3 fights. Let’s start with the latest fighter to come out of retirement (again) only to be on the recieveing end of an embarrassing #BEATEMDOWN. The first of BJ’s embarrassing return fights was against Rory Macdonald, only a little more than a year after his first “retirement” following the beating Nick Diaz put on him.
That was still way back in December 2012! BJ sorta retired after that one, depending on who you asked, but begged his way onto the Ultimate Fighter and into another embarrassing #BEATEMDOWN against Frankie Edgar in July of 2014.
You would really think at this point BJ would stay retired, but you’d be wrong!
He came back again last weeknd at UFC Fight Night 103 Phoenix and got kicked in the face roughly 7067 times in a round and 24 seconds (all numbers are approximations). Hopefully this is the end for BJ Penn, but don’t be surprised if in 2025 you read a list about MMA fighters who should have been retired inspired by BJ Penn getting beaten up by some 18 year old from O’ahu at Shark Fights 17: Old Guard, New Lion.
#4 Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar at UFC 200. Ok, ok, so Brock Lesnar didn’t get beaten up in the cage at UFC 200, but man did he stir up some ahhhhh stuff.
Not only was his win overturned to a No-Contest because of a drug test failure, but now Lesnar is being sued and was fined $250,000 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. I know Brock likes money but was this really worth all of that?
Brock already has a lot of money, but it seems like this particular money grab has created a lot of headaches not just for Brock, but for the entire UFC who are now being targeted for a lawsuit by Mark Hunt.
I know rich people sue like us working class folks shake hands, but I got to think that Brock Lesnar has to have thought “Man I really should have stayed retired.” at least once over the past few months.
Also as for Brock’s “defense” that the drug test failure was due to a “foot cream” as the great street philospher Jay-Z once said “ we don’t believe you, you need more people.”
#3 Royce Gracie
Being a pioneer of the sport and a legend does not make you immune from the sweet siren call of coming out of retirement. Well that and the IRS if we’re keeping it a hundred. Royce Gracie is 2-0 since 2007 when he came out of retirement to get worn around the cage like a button by farmboy and noted proponent of hard physical manual labor Matt Hughes.
After taking that Hughes beating(which didn’t seem like hard work for Matt so I’m sure he then plowed a field or put up some fencing or something to get a sweat in) Gracie followed up by beating fellow old-timer Kazushi Sakuraba.
Good right? Everyone feels good about Gracie beating the “Gracie Killer.”
Wrong. Because ol’ Royce here tested positive for them steroids. But then he just recently beat Ken Shamrock, so we feel good? Right? Please tell me I can feel good? Nope, because Royce totally knee’d Ken in the balls for the finish. So yeah, let’s just move on before I cry.
#2 Tito Ortiz
Tito Ortiz originally retired after his third fight with Forrest Griffin, right after he was inducted into the UFC’s hall of fame. You could argue Tito got robbed in a fight where he landed 2 knockdowns and 2 takedowns, but Griffin got the nod somehow and that he should have been done then while it still seemed like he could compete at least a little bit.
But it was a short lived retirement, as Tito came back to fight one time 185lb Bellator champion Alexander Shlemenko in what some suggested was a fixed fight. Tito then fought a lackluster fight with Stephan Bonner that a lot of people watched, before losing in predictable fashion to former Bellator Light-Heavyweight kingpin Liam McGeary.
He fights for what he says is the last time this weekend against Chael Sonnen another dude who claimed he was retired. If you get nothing else out of this article (and it’s possible) learn this, never trust a fighter who says they are retired. EVER.”
#1 Ken Shamrock
It’s hard to tell if Ken Shamrock ever actually retired even now as a 50 year old man. You could argue he retired the first time all the way back at UFC 9, and has been coming back periodically, when people would pay him to, ever since.
The Great Greg Howard wrote a piece on Ken Shamrock called which called him “The World’s Most Dangerous Can” which says more than I ever could about his comebacks and the success thereof.
The reason I put Ken Shamrock number one is because while the rest of this list is retired, or going to be retired within a week or so, Ken Shamrock is sitting somewhere, waiting for the phone to ring.
