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After he leaves the octagon at Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo, where he meets Hector Lombard (34-9-1 MMA, 3-7 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 135 on Sept. 22, Leites has made his peace with the fact that will no longer be an MMA fighter.
“It’s not an idea,” Leites told MMAjunkie. “It’s been decided. I will do my last fight and I will stop.”
The decision, Leites says, has been in the making for about a year. And while he understands why fellow retired fighters would get the urge to return after being away from the cage for a while, he just doesn’t think that’s something that will happen to him.
That might be because this wasn’t a decision triggered by a specific event – like, as it’s often the case in these situations, a bad injury on specific lingering damage. His body, Leites says, is holding up just fine. But the Brazilian middleweight also knows he’s asked a lot from it after not only 36 professional fights, but also the gruelling training camps that before so many of them.
It adds up. And while he feels healthy now, he wants to give his body a rest in order to make sure that’s the case in the future, as well.
“I’m going to be 37, I already have a pretty big number of fights,” Leites said. “I don’t want to stay at 37, 38, 39 doing this very intense training that also has a lot of impact to the head – the famous concussion. Like it or not, every training session, you’re taking impact to the head.
“Not to mention the abrupt weight cuts. Doing that two to three times a year, we know it’s not healthy. It’s needed in the sport, and it’s common – of course, we do it with medical guidance, and we’re used to it. But how is the future of the athletes who started doing these weight cuts, their old age?”
Concern for future implications on his health, however, is not all there is to Leites’ decision.
“I’ve had many fights, so I don’t have the same drive, that same hunger to keep training and competing that I did before,” Leites said. ” I think my time has come. Now, there are new generations coming in. I’m happy for everything I did, everything I went through. I really enjoyed the journey and I’ll keep enjoying it, in a different way.”
https://mmajunkie.com/2018/08/thale...d-held-high-mma/amp?__twitter_impression=true
“It’s not an idea,” Leites told MMAjunkie. “It’s been decided. I will do my last fight and I will stop.”
The decision, Leites says, has been in the making for about a year. And while he understands why fellow retired fighters would get the urge to return after being away from the cage for a while, he just doesn’t think that’s something that will happen to him.
That might be because this wasn’t a decision triggered by a specific event – like, as it’s often the case in these situations, a bad injury on specific lingering damage. His body, Leites says, is holding up just fine. But the Brazilian middleweight also knows he’s asked a lot from it after not only 36 professional fights, but also the gruelling training camps that before so many of them.
It adds up. And while he feels healthy now, he wants to give his body a rest in order to make sure that’s the case in the future, as well.
“I’m going to be 37, I already have a pretty big number of fights,” Leites said. “I don’t want to stay at 37, 38, 39 doing this very intense training that also has a lot of impact to the head – the famous concussion. Like it or not, every training session, you’re taking impact to the head.
“Not to mention the abrupt weight cuts. Doing that two to three times a year, we know it’s not healthy. It’s needed in the sport, and it’s common – of course, we do it with medical guidance, and we’re used to it. But how is the future of the athletes who started doing these weight cuts, their old age?”
Concern for future implications on his health, however, is not all there is to Leites’ decision.
“I’ve had many fights, so I don’t have the same drive, that same hunger to keep training and competing that I did before,” Leites said. ” I think my time has come. Now, there are new generations coming in. I’m happy for everything I did, everything I went through. I really enjoyed the journey and I’ll keep enjoying it, in a different way.”
https://mmajunkie.com/2018/08/thale...d-held-high-mma/amp?__twitter_impression=true
