After defeating Bill Algeo in the Fight of the Night at UFC on ESPN+ 33, Ricardo Lamas sounded like he was retiring at the age of 38, after twelve years of fighting. During a recent Appearance On Jimmy Smith’s new Unlocking the Cage show on SiriusXM’s Fight Nation Ch. 156, Lamas firmed up the retirement decision.
Unlike too many fighters, Lamas has a plan B – he owns a UFC Gym not far from home outside Chicago. But he generally holds his camps at MMA Masters gym in Miami, necessitating time away from his wife and three children. More, Lamas wants to go out looking spectacular, not beaten.
For me, there were a couple things going into this sport that I wanted to do before I left it, said Lamas said. I’ve accomplished a ton of that. I’m the type of guy where if I were to leave on a bad note, it would just stick with me for the longest time ever – and it’s just something that I couldn’t live with. I always told myself I want to go out on a high note.
You always hear about these athletes that don’t know when to hang the gloves up, and they experience this downward slide, and it’s just like, ‘Man, this isn’t the same guy he was before.’ I don’t want to leave the sport like that. I don’t want to leave with my face in the mud. I want to leave holding my head up high.
After the win over Algeo, Lamas spoke in Spanish about the political situation in Cuba; it was very well received by Cuban Americans.
The more I think about that last fight and everything that happened,” began Lamas. “Having it be a ‘Fight of the Night,’ just showing everybody I’m still there; I can still hang with these guys; I leave my heart in the cage; having my post-fight speech kind of go viral with the Cuban-American community everywhere; just the influx of messages I’ve been getting – I was up a 3 in the morning rocking my girl to sleep because she woke up in the middle of the night, trying to answer everybody back – the more I think about all those things, the more I couldn’t make a more perfect time to leave the sport and kind of leave my legacy where it’s at.
I was never a world champion or anything like that, but with my post-fight speech, if I could be one tiny spark of the million sparks that helps bring down the dictatorship in Cuba, to me that’s worth more than 10 world championships put together.”
So what does he want fans to remember?
Maybe that I’m just kind of one of the last of the old-school guys that held the true aspect of martial arts true during my whole career – respect and discipline I didn’t put on an act,” he said. “I was who I was every time. And every time I stepped into that cage, I gave it my all and left my heart soul in there. I think if people remember me that way, I’d be pretty happy with my legacy.
🔊"The more I think about that last fight and everything that happened…the more I couldn't make a more perfect time to leave the sport and kind of leave my legacy where it's at" – @RicardoLamasMMA discusses his #UFCVegas8 post-fight retirement comments with @jimmysmithmma👊 pic.twitter.com/kotoppAcOI
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) September 1, 2020
h/t Matt Erickson for MMA Junkie
