Brian Ebersole retires following 70th pro fight at UFC Fight Night in New Orleans
On the night where he stepped into an MMA fight for the 70th time, Brian Ebersole decided to call it a career following his loss to Omari Akhmedov at UFC Fight Night: Boetsch vs. Henderson.
Ebersole called a stop to his fight after the first round of his fight on Saturday night following a knee injury suffered during an early exchange with Akhmedov.
Ebersole was largely inactive for the remainder of the round and the replay showed his lead leg buckling after he planted for a punch and Akhmedov countered with a huge kick directly to the knee.
Following the loss, Ebersole said that the damage was done and he had enough after more than 15 years in the sport.
"I'm old, everything hurts," Ebersole said after his fight. "Lifetime of wrestling takes a toll on you, getting your head pulled, knees banged up. I'm going to leave it to the young guys now. That's it for me.
"I planned on retiring in November after the fight in Melbourne, but we'll call it a night tonight. I've come a long way. I cheated the system. I was a wrestler my whole life. Once I quit wrestling in college, this [MMA] was the thing I turned to. I extended it another 15 years, I can gracefully hang 'em up and call it a day."
Injuries have robbed Ebersole from fighting for most of the past two years. His bout on Saturday night was only his third since the close of 2012.
If this really is the end for Ebersole, he will go down as one of the great journeymen in MMA history having fought all over the world against some of the best fighters from the earliest days of the sport all the way to the modern era where the UFC is today.
