Stout: I didn’t want to wait until it’s too late

Retired Canadian lightweight Sam Stout was never KOed in his first 30 fights. Then he got knocked out three times in a row. Then he retired at age 31.

Stout appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour recently and discussed the changes in his life. He had his one-year old daughter, Logan, sitting on his lap.

“It’s strange man, it’s so hard for me to wrap my brain around,” said Stout as transcribed by Chuck Mindenhall for MMAFighting.com. “But I think it was the right decision. I’m only 31 years old and a lot of people are like, ‘you’re still so young,’ but I’ve got a lot of miles on me. I’ve been doing this for half of my life. And I’ve got my daughter Logan here, and losing those last three fights by knockout. I’m not having any post-concussion symptoms, and I’m not feeling any memory loss or anything along those lines that you hear about some of these guys suffering from, but I don’t want to wait until that one shot that puts me over the edge and start having those. I’d rather not wait until it’s too late.

“I clearly can’t take a punch the same way I used to, so the decision wasn’t that hard for me.”

“You’ve seen it in the past, it happened with like Chuck Liddell, who kind of went through the same thing. Some of the best fighters of all time just reach a certain age where they just can’t seem to do it anymore. It’s just wear and tear on your body, and I’ve been talking to some doctors and they say that once it happens once your body realizes, okay, I went unconscious this time and then the punishment stopped. Then it becomes your body’s way, like your body realizes that it’s a good defense mechanism against this kind of punishment.

“So maybe that’s what it is. I’m not a doctor, I can’t explain it. I just know I used to be able to walk through those punches without flinching, and now that’s three times in a row that I went down.”

“It wasn’t something I was really dwelling on, it wasn’t something I was spending too much time thinking about and letting it get into my head, But I had told myself…if I get knocked out by Frankie Perez, who’s a tough kid but he’s not really a stand-up guy, not known for being a knockout artist, he’s more of a submission guy — I was like, if I lose this one, that’s three in a row and I’m going to hang them up. So, by the time came back to the back room I already knew that my career was over.”

Stout won seven ‘of the Night’ performance bonuses, and said he wishes he had built up more of a nest egg than he did. He has no regrets and no issues with the organization he has fought for since 2007, but he wishes the UFC had some kind of a transitioning program for just retired fighters.

“Well, of course I wish that, you know it’s a difficult path and luckily I was smart enough not to just blow through all those fight of the night checks and all that,” he said. “I got hooked up with some of the right people to take care of my finances and help me out with that stuff. But, yeah it would be nice if there was a little more help.

“And you know, they do the UFC fighter summit and they talk to us all about that. But for a lot of guys that goes in one ear and out the other. I think as more guys start retiring, you’re going to see a lot of them that are in the Allen Iverson type of situation, where they’re flat broke. You’re going to see former athletes, guys that people used to look up to, working at diners, you know, barely able to make ends meet.

“But, I don’t know. It’s a hard thing to talk about, and I’m not going to complain after the fact that I didn’t make enough money, that I didn’t get this or I didn’t get that. I’m not that type of person. But yeah, it would definitely be nice if there was something for after. Because I’m 31 years old, and I kind of stopped my education and stopped what could have been, I could have been 10 years as a paramedic with a pension and benefits and medical benefits and dental benefits for my daughter here. And now I have none of those things. I don’t regret my time in the UFC at all, it’s the opposite in fact. But yeah, it would be nice if there was something to kind help you transition out.”