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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Renato "Babalu" Sobral has competed in professional mixed martial arts for nearly 16 years, but that career came to an end on Wednesday night, as he announced his retirement following a loss to Jacob Noe at Bellator 96.
The opening round fight of the four-man light heavyweight tournament saw Sobral fade badly and lose by TKO late into the third round. It was his third loss in four fights, and fourth loss in his last six, with all of those defeats coming by way of knockout or TKO.
"It's kind of highly emotional for me to talk about this right now, but I think maybe I've been in the cage more than everybody in this room here," an emotional Sobral said after the loss (via MMAJunkie.com). "I lived the life. That's what I want to say. I have no regrets. I was happy to help this sport grow."
"I'll keep continuing to help the sport to grow, but I won't fight anymore. I wished for a good fight. I wish I could have been faster. I wish I could have been stronger than I used to be. But my body cannot continue to do this anymore, and it's time for me to step out."
It's an unfortunately all too common story for Sobral, going out in increasingly worse fashion despite what he was once able to do in the sport. The 37-year-old debuted at 22 in 1997, and would remain undefeated until 2000, when he dropped a decision to Dan Henderson in a Rings event in Japan. His second loss would come that year, also in Rings, against Valentijn Overeem, but that was his transitioning point into the UFC.
"Babalu" would win his UFC debut against Maurice Smith, but after a couple more wins in Rings he would lose to Fedor Emelianenko. He came back to the UFC, losing two of three fights in the organization in 2002, including his first match against Chuck Liddell.
He would be out of the organization for the next few years, until returning in a big way with a stoppage of Travis Wiuff at UFC 152, the organization's first pay-per-view since The Ultimate Fighter's first finale event. Wins over Chael Sonnen and Mike Van Arsdale would follow, giving Sobral a shot at the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship, and a rematch with Chuck Liddell.
Liddell knocked him out in that fight, and he was then knocked out again in his next outing against Jason Lambert. He halted that slide with a win over David Heath, but he held onto his submission hold well after the referee had stepped in and was, in turn, fired.
Sobral would win five fights in a row outside of the UFC following that release, including a win over Bobby Southworth for Strikeforce's Light Heavyweight Championship. But that led to the first of four losses over his last six fights, as he was knocked out by Gegard Mousasi in August of 2009 to lose that title. Following that loss, he would win only two of his final five fights, including Thursday night, where he dropped to 0-2 inside the Bellator cage.
Penick's Analysis: His legacy will be of a fighter who competed all over the world in just about every major MMA organization that has come along, and held his own everywhere until the end. The knockout losses start to add up, and Babalu has taken a ton of punishment over the years. Given what we saw Wednesday night, this is the correct move for him, and one can only hope that he's able to stick to it moving forward.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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