Former UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira hung up the gloves at UFC 283. He walked into the Octagon in front of a home crowd in Brazil expecting to take out Jamahal Hill and reclaim the light heavyweight title. Instead, he realized at that moment that his war with Hill was the perfect ending to his incredible career. Teixeira discussed the very moment he knew it was time to retire with Trocação Franca.
“I didn’t have anything planned. I was getting frustrated in training sometimes because recovery is hard. The way I’m used to training, that brutal training, and that’s something I missed in this fight, being brutal with takedowns.
The Moment Glover Teixeira Knew He Had To Retire
I had many opportunities. I was avoiding [his punches] early, but then he started to connect a lot of punches and cut me. But I could still can block some and fight back. I get cut too easy — I’m like Nick Diaz and Nate Diaz. But I lacked that aggressiveness.”
Teixeira, now 43, was happy too have the chance to finish things before his own people. “It was so cool, man. I started my career in the United States and had the opportunity to fight on the Brazilian scene, to know everything about my culture, and then to come back and end my career in Brazil. I’m so happy about everything.
I said, ‘This is the moment, to move on to another stage.’ If I’m not fighting for the UFC belt, if I don’t have that goal, I’ve never fought only for the belt, but I had that thing of, ‘I’m going after it, I’ll win it again,’ you know? To go back and fight another fight only for the fight, with no desire and hunger to get to the belt again… I’m good, man.
I think my wife was very happy with my decision because she can’t take it anymore. It’s not just the fights, man. This sport is hard. You give your all in any sport to become a world champion, you leave it all in there and bring your family with you through that pressure on fight week. Mother and father, my wife, I see her tension when I have a fight booked. ‘Who are you fighting? Jamahal?’ And she goes on to watch Jamahal Hill’s fights, Jiri Prochazka’s. She doesn’t say anything, she’s always confident, ‘You’ll beat him,’ but she sees the danger this guy presents.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XI0UJbCFLc
