Editorial: Paul Felder has enough reasons to walk away from MMA

Bloodyelbow.com

It took Paul Felder 12 UFC fights to break into the official UFC lightweight rankings. By then he was eight years into his MMA career. His decision win over James Vick put him in the No. 10 spot. His split decision victory over Edson Barboza earned him the No. 6 ranking. After his split decision loss to Dan Hooker in the main event of Saturday’s UFC Auckland card, Felder will drop at least one spot when the rankings are refreshed this coming week. The likelihood he will have to face someone ranked below him in his next bout is high, which means Felder is much further away from a lightweight title shot than he was before his “Fight of the Night” bonus-winning scrap against Hooker.

That fact might have been on Felder’s mind when he began unwrapping the red tape from his gloves after Bruce Buffer announced he had lost to Hooker. Felder had fully removed the tape from his right glove before UFC commentator Dan Hardy approached him for some words.

“That might be it for me,” a tearful Felder said. “Man, I got a four-year-old at home that misses me every time I go away like this. I don’t know.”

During the interview, Felder removed his right glove.

“I’ll still go back, I’ll talk to my family, but it’s an absolute honor to share the Octagon for 25 minutes with this son of a b-tch,” Felder added before saluting the crowd and then sitting on the mat where he allowed his team to remove his other glove as Hooker celebrated outside the cage with his family and teammates.

Hooker will move on and likely take the next step toward a title fight, perhaps getting the fight he called for from the octagon, a matchup against the No. 4 ranked Justin Gaethje.

As for Felder, he’ll spend some time in an Auckland hospital before beginning a flight that will take close to 24 hours of travel time to return him to his family. When they welcome him, he won’t look the same as when he left.

There’s no doubt Felder will spend a large part of his travel time thinking about his future, and there could easily be more reasons to retire than to fight on for the 34-year-old scrapper.

The lightweight division is the most competitive weight class in the UFC, and Felder knows that. He also knows he dropped a few rungs down the ladder on Saturday. It will take Felder some time to get his hands back on those rungs.

Felder has also been around this game long enough to watch other competitors miss out on a substantial amount of their children’s youth. With a four-year-old daughter at home, it can’t been an easy task for him to spend his camp in Milwaukee and then spend additional time in places like Auckland, Abu Dhabi and Glasgow to compete.

Felder’s style of fighting is also something he needs to consider. The all action style Felder employs is not one made for a long and comfortable career. All one has to do is look at Felder’s face after the 25-minutes he spent exchanging with Hooker to realize that.

Finally, Felder already has a gig that takes him away from his family for far shorter amounts of time and returns him to his family in the same physical and emotional shape he left in. That gig is his UFC commentary job.

In short, on paper, Felder has more reasons to retire than he does to keep fighting, and if he retires, no one should pressure him to go back. Especially his coach or his manager, who are both paid in the money Felder earns with his blood. Both of whom almost immediately began walking back Felder’s retirement talk after the fight.

If Felder decides to get back into the octagon, that’s his decision and his decision alone, but everyone should allow him to make that call with his family and his family alone.