Kevin
Lee recently opened up on his decision to return to
competition, six months after announcing his retirement.
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Lee (19-8) hung up his gloves after being submitted in under a
minute by Rinat
Fakhretdinov in July last year. “The Motown Phenom” recently
announced his decision to come out of retirement which was
seemingly flamed by a conversation with his mother. While Lee was
already having trouble staying away from fighting, an observation
made by his mother made the axe fall, Lee told Middle Easy:
“It’s a long time coming. I’ve probably been thinking about it for
the last two months or so. The one that really kind of pushed me
over the edge was a conversation that I had with my mom. She said
that the smile in my soul is gone. I remember repeating it back to
her to make sure I heard it right. I was like, ‘man, that’s
deep.’”
“My takeaway from it was just that I needed to fight again. It had
already kind of been, like, in my mind. It had already been
something that I keep being driven to. When she said that, I was
like, ‘OK, what am I going to do?’ I’m 31 now. If I’m going to make
a run, now is the time, and I don’t want to live with no regrets. I
really need to see this thing through. I need to see my life
through and feel good for myself.”
Lee was previously released by the
Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2021 after going 1-4 since
2018 and earned his way back to the promotion with a decision win
over fellow UFC vet Diego
Sanchez under the Eagle FC banner. Lee’s fight with
Fakhretdinov marked his return to the Las Vegas-based promotion, a
booking he regrets accepting.
“It was a dumb fight,” Lee said. “It was stupid. I knew my knee was
torn to shreds the entire time. It was the worst training camp that
I ever had. I couldn’t even spar or go hard in the training camp at
all. That fight was purely just out of pride and ego of me being
cut from the UFC and not on the terms that I would have liked.
Then, me kind of getting this opportunity and letting my pride take
over and say that I’ll do it. In hindsight, it was a terrible
decision.”
After competing at catchweight and welterweight, Lee intends to
return to competition at lightweight, where he had challenged for
the interim title.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to cut weight. If you want to
compete, you’re going to have to cut the weight, and that’s what it
is for me. I can make the weight. That’s where my most success
comes from. That’s what my frame is built for… Me trying to pack
on the pounds and go to 170, not only was it bad for my joints and
bad for my knees, but it made me slower and it was unsuccessful.
I’m glad that I did it to know what would happen, but, yeah, I’m
kind of happy to leave that behind me.”