MMA is a grueling sport with many ups and downs for the fighters to face throughout their career. Sometimes the downs will outweigh the success in the MMA world.
Any permanent injury will make any fighter resort to him quitting the business altogether. At the same time, some fighters reach their full potential and go a bit further to claim another reward in the world of MMA. It is very difficult for anyone to assume or tell how long an MMA fighter lasts in the business without proper data and information.
How long Does an Mma carrer last on Average?
MMA fighters can go on for 12.5 years before seeing the days of retirement. 12.5 equivalents to 35 fights in the octagon. The retired age of a fighter seems to be 41 with 2,8 fighters in each year.
UFC Fighters with longest mma carrer
If you take the UFC into this question, then the facts become very clear. Only Miko Cro Cop and Dan Henderson took their career to 19 years, while all the other professional fighters retired after 12 – 13 years.
Other MMA fighters got out of the fighting game after 7 – 8 years. Only a few fighters have taken their career over 12 years. Most of them settle at 9 or 7. The body will not be able to handle the damage as it once used to on the fighter’s prime.
Average number of fights during an mma career
The fighters who go on for 12 to 13 years have a huge record and a great amount of title runs and wins on their belt. 40 seems to be the average number of fights for fighters who take their career up to double digits.
Only Royce Gracie retired at the age of 50 after being involved in 20 fights.
Chuck Liddel followed Gracie with 30 fights and retired at the age of 49. Compared to other fighters these two fighters have pushed the limit on their professional career to shatter records for the game.
Average Age of Retirement for mma fighters
Most fighters settle in the age of 40 to 41 to end their career and focus on something else. Most of the time it falls to a platform that is related to the sport of MMA.
In the world of MMA, only fighters with 20+ fighters are considered the best in the business. Some fighters who have garnered the highest record in the business are from the past.
The rules of MMA have gone through a significant amount of changes over the years, to fit the modern world of combat sports.
Now the sports and the fighters are more professional than they used to be. You will never see an athlete from another sport jumping into MMA and winning a belt at the age of 34. The fighters are more talented and the UFC is less complicated with fair rules that keep the fighter safe while making the match interesting.
Some fighters do like to participate in other sports before making their way to MMA.
Other combat sports such as wrestling, kickboxing, BJJ, Muay Thai, and many more to make their stage presence and MMA skill better before jumping into the MMA ring. It is a very difficult subject to talk about a fighter’s career without taking some proper data.
When you are evaluating the career length of any fighter, you must take the years they were active and the time span between their first fight to their last fight in the business. Some fighters take a break from their sport to do other things in life.
Numbers of Match Before Moves to Professional mma vs Boxing
The sport of UFC differs a lot from Boxing even if they share some similarities. Amature fighters are important for a fighter who wants to start a professional fighting career. In boxing, the fighters sometimes go through 100 amateur bouts before jumping into the sport, But in the world of MMA, a fighter needs to have at least 3 amateur fighters before seeing the spotlight of a professional. Most MMA fights spend 1 to 2 years getting involved in amateur bouts.
The factors of a lasting career
1 – How many fights a fighter had in the ring?
The longest career of any fighter should reflect on how many fights they had in the ring. The numbers here are quite shocking, some fighters involved in more fights in their professional career before reaching the retirement age, while others reaching the retiring age but had only a few fights to their name.
Rashad Evans fought less than 2 times a year for 15 years before getting out of the business. That may sound a lot, but if you compare that number to Matt Hughes, who was active for 13 years and fought 54 times in this professional career.
This translates to 4.2 times a year, compared to Rashad Evens, Matt Hughes fought 2 times more than him in each of the years he was with MMA.
2 -What kind of fights did the fighters take part in?
Some fighters fight less because the matches are very demanding of their physicalness. Someone who is a champion or holding the belt of a weight division has to fight a 5 round fight to defend the belt from a contender.
The training for a 5 round fight will be more excruciating than a 3 round fight. Normally a non-championship match involves 3 round fights 5 minutes each, training for a 3 round fight is much easier compared to a 5 round fight in a championship or other major event.
That is why champions get to fight one or two times a year. It is the training that takes plenty of toll on the fighters.
Almost all the fighters who had their career span to 40 years have seen a fair amount of championship battles in the ring. GSP defended his title 9 times and took part in 15 championship fights all throughout his long career.
3 – Declination of stage presence
Multiple studies have been done on this subject showing all sorts of information about the career statistics of an MMA fighter.
A study done by fightopinion.com showed the fighters seeing a decline in their career after 9 years in the sport.
The study also revealed that it will take 4 years for any fighter to reach their prime of the game. In their prime, they won most championships against professionals.
In the 4th year, fighters will begin seeing mainstream success in their fighting abilities. This is the time where most eyes will be on them all the time.
The legacy of the fighter will get better after how much success they had in their prime. If they see a monstrous amount of fan base reaction to their fight, then the fighter will have a long-lasting position in the game of MMA.
Fighters such as Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell, and many more are selling tickets to their fighting PPV even if they are in their late 30s. That goes to tell how much influence a fighter can be on a person. The reaction from the fan will help the fighter to stretch their career to bigger numbers than the average years.
4 – Reaching the prime
27 to 32 is considered prime for any fighter in the game. This is when the fighter picks up the most amount of steam from their abilities and MMA presence.
A fighter with the most presence will be able to experience a long career in this field without losing the fan base.
Various comebacks and returns will be able to garner the hype and sell tickets. Getting into sports too young will not guarantee a long career.
Starting below the age of 20 might sound good but you will see a great amount of decline after you hit the age of 28 or 29. Which is considered as the prime time for any fighters in UFC.
5-Permanent or Temporary injuries
Another factor that can raise the year limit is injuries. Long-lasting injuries will make the fighter quit the business in 5 or 6 years.
Depends on how many injuries and the impact of the conditions weighs the fighter down. Some injuries such as torn ACLs or shoulders will put the fighter under a lot of pressure on regular training.
Some serious injuries will make players retire from the game in the short run. Fighters such as Cain Velasques, Dominick Cruz, and many others have seen this happen in their life.
So they had to resort to doing something else than being part of the sport.
Injuries can be permanent and temporary, and a long time of taking injuries will take a toll on the body that will get hard to recover from. This can harm the fidget presence in the MMA world altogether. If the body is about to give up, then the fighter should quit the game before sustaining any heavy permanent injury.
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Conclusion
The average length of an MMA career comes down to various factors and data. Most fighters retire after they turn 40. Heavy injury can also make fighters make their career end in a few years. Pushing the age limit has worked for some fighters in the MMA world, but that is too rare and far between. Most fighters will see their career decline after 8 or 9 years.