Shogun Rua discusses potential retirement

After fifteen years of fighting professionally, at the age of 35, many are wondering just how much longer MMA legend Mauricio Shogun Rua will continue to fight. Despite his age, Shogun Rua is currently on a 2-fight win streak that has seen him pick up back to back wins over Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Corey ‘Beastin 25/8’ Anderson.

Ahead of Rua’s March 11th scrap with Gian Villante at ‘UFC Fight Night: London’ the MMA legend spoke to MMAJunkie to discuss his currently plans for the future, as well as the possibility of retirement, which he doesn’t always like to discuss:

“The subject bothers me a little,” Rua told MMAjunkie. “Because I’m experienced – I’ve been fighting for many years – but I’m also a young guy. I’m 35. People stop at 40, 38, 39. Depends. I think every athlete has the liberty to stop whenever they want.

“People speculate that a lot about me because I’ve had a few losses, but everyone has losses. So if a doctor doesn’t perform a perfect surgery, they need to retire? If a dentist doesn’t perfectly extract a tooth, they need to retire? A businesswoman goes into a meeting and it’s not successful, she needs to retire? If I’m happy to be fighting, and the UFC is happy to have me fighting for them, I don’t know why people are so bothered by it.”

“In the past years I fought once every year because ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ (Rua coached the fourth Brazilian season opposite Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who filled in for Anderson Silva) got in the way a bit; we taped it, and the finale took a while (to happen),” Rua said. “And then right after, I fought, and I had a small injury.

“Now I’m fully recovered. My focus for 2017 is for sure to do two or three fights. I think, two at least – that’s my focus for every year. I try to always look after myself. Now I’m 100 percent, thankfully. I had tendinitis on my knee, and that got in the way of training. That’s healed up, and hopefully I won’t have any more injuries this year.”

Despite the injuries which Run mentioned, he was able to secure the win over Lil Nog at UFC 190 in August of 2015. Only time will tell if he is able to move one step closer to the UFC championship come March 11th.

on 1/21/2017.