Paul Felder: “50-50” chance I’ll retire with dos Anjos win

Paul Felder says there’s a “50-50” chance he’ll retire if he defeats Rafael dos Anjos in the main event of UFC Vegas 13 this Saturday.

Dos Anjos was originally expected to take on Islam Makhachev in the card’s main event. When Makhachev was ruled out of the fight with staph infection, however, Felder stepped in on just five days’ notice.

Ahead of fight, Felder spoke to ESPN and conceded that there’s a 50 percent chance he’ll retire after the fact, particularly if he’s victorious.

“I say 50-50,” Felder said when asked how likely he is to retire after his fight with dos Anjos (via Bloody Elbow). “I was thinking about that. What a way to just be like, ‘Boom! Mic drop.’

“(The odds will) probably do increase (if I win),” he continued. “If I lose, then I might want to have to get back in there for one more. It might eat away at me, just kind of like the Hooker fight that I was ready to move on. And then it’s like, ‘No.’ I still haven’t proven quite what I’m capable of.”

Felder has been teasing retirement for the better part of a year now. From the sounds of it, however, this short-notice fight with dos Anjos was simply too good an opportunity to pass up.

“I know I’m nearing the end of my career soon, and this, I think, it’s win-win for me,” Felder said. “Because if I go in there and I can finish and beat RDA, a former champ, then it gives me a lot of selling points to be getting these bigger fights which seem to have been eluding me in the top five of the lightweight division here in the UFC. How do you not give me something big after this if I go in there after stepping up?

“If it doesn’t go my way, then I saved the day. I’m going in there to try to win.”

Do you think Paul Felder will retire after his fight this weekend?