Brad Pickett: It’s Definitely The Right Decision To Retire

Veteran UFC bantamweight Brad “One Punch” Pickett competed for the last time yesterday (March 18, 2017) at UFC Fight Night 107 in his home of London, England.

Pickett had made it clear prior to the fight that he had planned on retiring after the event, but unfortunately the bout didn’t go his way, as he was stopped in the third round when his opponent, Marlon Vera, landed a brutal head kick.

“One Punch” was emotional after the fight, but he confirmed that retiring was ‘definitely the right decision’:

“I was winning the fight for 14 minutes, and then I got a head kick where, to be honest, the younger me would have chewed that up and carried on going,” Pickett said (Via MMAJunkie). “It’s definitely the right decision (to retire).

“Obviously, it’s not the fairytale ending that myself and probably everyone else wanted.”

Pickett was indeed winning the fight, so he could’ve played things safer in the final round, but elected to fight as he always has, which he described as living and dying by the sword:

“It’s me – my fighting style,” he said. “I live by the sword, die by the sword. I say I fight for the fans.

” … I did have some trouble taking him down when I went for a takedown, but I could have just taken him down and laid on him and made it boring. But for me, I wanted to be in a typical Brad Pickett fight. And in a typical Brad Pickett fight, it’s would’ve been me getting up and carrying on fighting.”

Mixed martial arts is an unforgiving game that rarely sends its warriors out on a high note, which Pickett learned the hard way yesterday:

“You can tell, this is real life – this isn’t always fairytales,” he said.

Do you agree with Pickett’s decision to retire?