A change in priorities influenced Carla
Esparza’s decision to retire after UFC
307.
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Esparza will be returning from pregnancy and childbirth for a
rematch against Tecia
Pennington at UFC 307 on Oct. 5 in Salt Lake City, Utah. While
announcing her return fight, “Cookie Monster” also r revealed that it’ll be the last one of her
career.
More recently, Esparza elaborated on her retirement decision,
citing a variety of factors. Esparza noted that the unforgiving
sport has often seen the best of the best take a steep fall from
grace toward the end of their careers, like B.J. Penn,
Anderson
Silva or Tony
Ferguson. While Esparza hasn’t reached a point where she is
desperately hanging on to the roster, she just isn’t able to make
the kind of commitment she used to after the birth of her child.
And not being “all-in” feels like doing an injustice to the sport
for the former two-time UFC strawweight champion.
“We’ve seen it time and time again, the sport kind of forces you
out,” Esparza told MMAFighting.com. “You have devastating loss
after devastating loss, and honestly, I’ve seen a lot of my heroes
fighting over the years and it’s hard to watch that. And I never
wanted to be that to my fans. We all lose and have bad losses. I’ve
been finished and I’ve come back. And I don’t necessarily think my
body’s putting me out to a place where I’m just gonna plummet, I’m
going downhill. I still think I have a good amount of fight left in
me, but just being older and the amount of time it takes to recover
and to prepare for each training session and to avoid injury, it’s
a lot. I wish I could show up to training and leave, but the amount
of commitment that it takes to be at this level and to train smart
is a lot. I don’t want to half-ass this sport. If I do it, I want
to be all-in and I want to give this sport the attention and the
time that it deserves.”
For some fighters, the decision to retire is influenced by the
feeling of a lack of drive after years of brutalizing their bodies.
But not for Esparza, who still feels very passionate learning in
the gym even after a career spanning over nearly a decade and a
half. But the 37-year-old can’t deny the toll that prizefighting
takes on the body. And Esparza feels it would be selfish of her to
still continue focusing on her career instead of her son.
“This decision took a lot of thought,” Esparza siad. “I always said
that when this sport stopped being fun for me and when I lost my
passion, that would be the time to hang it up. But that hasn’t
happened. I still go to training like hungry to learn, my coaches
show me something, I’m like, ‘OK, this is how I step and I gotta
rotate this way.’ I’m still so passionate about learning and
growing in this sport and evolving. So it wasn’t that for me. It’s
so many things.
“I wish my body was where my mind is at. I think I’ve heard a lot
of my teammates say once you hit 30 in the room, you start to feel
it, and that’s definitely true. I’ll be turning 37 the week after
the fight, so it’s definitely put a lot of years on this car. And
the attention it takes to be a parent for me, and everyone does it
different but I feel that being a parent is the most selfless thing
I’ve ever done, and being a fighter is the most selfish thing I’ve
done. The focus is all on me and what do I need to do to be the
best and whatever. That’s the No. 1 for me. Now, priorities have
just changed a little bit.”
Esparza became the inaugural UFC strawweight champ by beating
Rose
Namajunas at “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 20 finale in 2014
before losing the title to Joanna
Jedrzejczyk the next year. She became strawweight champ for the
second time nearly a decade later with a split-decision win in a
rematch against “Thug” at UFC 274 in 2022. “Cookie Monster” lost
her strap to Zhang Weili via second-round submission at UFC 281
later that year and hasn’t fought since. Esparza will now look to
ride off into the sunset with a win over Pennington, whom she beat
in the “TUF 20” quarterfinals via majority decision.