Carlos Condit Announces Retirement

Former UFC interim champion Carlos Condit has announced his retirement from the sport. The former two-time welterweight champion has decided to walk away from the sport after facing defeat in his last fight. On Thursday, Condit’s manager, Malki Kawa of First Round Management, confirmed to media that “The Natural Born Killer” has decided to retire from the sport. MMA Fighting was the first to report the news. Now after announcing his retirement, Carlos has revealed the reasons for the same. He talked about his fighting life, his fights, and his opponents He also opened up on his last loss.

On Monday, Condit appeared on The MMA Hour to elaborate on why the timing was right for him to walk away from the competition.

“It was time, man,” Condit said. “It was time. For a lot of different reasons. After that last fight, I felt like I put together a good camp and I was just a step behind Max. I feel like I could really try to tweak things. I could try to figure out what’s missing, what part of the formula isn’t working right now and then go and test it again and test it again, but that’s a tough thing to do. That’s a tough thing to do because ultimately I have to go. And I put myself on the firing line to see if what I’m doing is working.”
“At a certain point there’s diminishing returns, so I think it’s time to move on.”

Carlos Condit Talked About His Last Loss To Max Griffin

“I’d been leaving a hotel room after a loss and been pssed off and leaving all my gear in a real salty mood and basically, ‘I’m done with this sit,’” Condit said. “But this time was different. I wasn’t salty about it, I just felt like it was the right move. Probably about three weeks or a month ago I called Dana and I let him know. So this thing has been coming down the pipe for a little while.”

“I’m an optimist,” Condit said. “I do get into those spots where I get down about things. But as soon as there’s any kind of sunlight peeking through the clouds I grasp onto that. I definitely felt some momentum, but also I think it’s more so just the time. A big piece of this is the amount of time and energy that I am still willing to put into fighting at the highest levels. I think in some ways I’m compromising things in my life, in my personal life.”

He Shared His Fighting Experience At the UFC

“To train as a professional mixed martial artist at the highest level of the sport, that takes a lot. That takes a lot out of me energetically, emotionally, just everything. I have less to give to the rest of my life. And at this point I don’t want to make that compromise anymore.”

“That’s really tough,” Condit said. “I’ve loved every f*cking second of it. The ups, the downs, all of it. If I had to pick a specific one, these last two fights that I won when we were out in Abu Dhabi and really just living in this surreal atmosphere. My coaches are all my really good friends and we had the opportunity to go to this crazy nice place and fight. That was a lot of fun. But I have 19, almost 20 years worth of memories so it would be really hard to pinpoint.”

“Having had the opportunity compete against great fighters, train alongside these great champions, since day one I have always passionate about this thing,” Condit said. “I still am. As I was thinking and all the messages, tons of messages, and all this stuff coming through about my retirement, congratulating me, I’ve been sitting with that a little bit and I think maybe what resonated with people was that I approached this with passion.”
“I stepped out there and I loved to fight, I love what I do, and I hoped every single time to go out there and put that on display. I love every second of this.”