UFC
UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin on MMA retirement: "You don't quit fighting, fighting quits you at some point"
Dec 3, 2013 - 10:35:00 PM UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin on MMA retirement: "You don't quit fighting, fighting quits you at some point"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Forrest Griffin retired this May after almost a year out of the cage, with injuries piled up not allowing him to return. Though he didn't get to go out on his own terms, Griffin said this week that his body physically couldn't keep on, and it remains that way over six months after he officially walked away.

"I physically can't [come back]," Griffin said in an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour on Monday. "I didn't want to be done, in the beginning. When I announced my retirement, that was actually when I was trying to come back and I realized, it just wasn't viable. It passed me by. My shoulder is done. I brush my teeth with my left hand now. That's just the way it goes. I can't shoot a basketball, I can't throw any kind of ball. I was right handed. The last three years, I was kinda fighting with one arm, on and off."

"My training camp was, I don't want to call it Frank Mir style, but it was Frank Mir style. It's like, I'm going to work on whatever hurts the least today. What are we doing today? Well, what's not broken today? That's what we're going to do today."

It wasn't sustainable for Griffin, and though he's living a different life now outside of competing in the cage, Griffin knows his time had come. On that note, he had advice to offer all fighters currently competing.

"It's not what it was. If you asked me today what my dream job is, it'd be to be a UFC fighter. That's what I want to be when I grow up. Nothing will ever take that place," Griffin admitted. "But it's just not physically possible. You have to move on with your life at some point. You don't quit fighting, fighting quits you at some point. It's very unfortunate, but that's the nature of the beast."

"And that's one of those things, too, that I like to tell young fighters. Have a backup plan," he continued. "When you're walking into the cage, on that day, on that week, you're a world champion. You're Anderson Silva. You're going to retire from the UFC as a champion and have plenty of money. Fine. But when you get your check and you go to the bank, start to think like Forrest Griffin. What am I going to be doing in five years? Is it realistically going to be fighting?"

"This is not a forever job. This is a young man's game, and at 36, I'm already done. Everybody thinks they're going to be Dan Henderson. You're not."

Penick's Analysis: This is actually really great advice from Griffin to all fighters. You have to plan for the future in a sport like this where longevity is just not in the cards. For a rare few, this is something they can do for 10, 15, even 20 years, but those are rare cases. Most will be in and out in under a decade, and they have to do as much as they can to make their money and save for the future while they're competing. Griffin's in a spot where he's been able to keep a job with the UFC, but few will be joining him there when their fighting careers are over. It's unfortunate for fighters to have their bodies fail them, but it's a reality in MMA for everyone eventually.