Jalin Turner surprisingly took off his gloves after losing at UFC 313.
Turner (14-9 MMA, 7-6 UFC) was submitted by Ignacio Bahamondes (17-5 MMA, 6-2 UFC) in Round 1 of Saturday’s lightweight main card bout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The loss marked Turner’s fourth in his past five outings. An emotional Turner explained why he decided to retire, despite being just 29 years old.
“I was already entertaining the thought, retiring after UFC 300,” Turner said in an interview with Sportsnet. “(I) took a little bit of time off, you know – kept training, just trying to get my mind right, just focus on like my mental health. It’s hard, man – fighting is hard. I’ve been doing it for 12 years, and you’ve either got to be all in or not. And even being in there now, I wasn’t fully all in as I thought I would be. The decision to stay or not was honestly based off this fight for me. I felt like I would get the nod, get the win.
“I’ve watched him. He’s an up-and-coming prospect. He deserved the opportunity, and I felt like I would get my hand raised and I didn’t. It’s emotional right now, but I’ve been thinking about this for the last 11 months if I’m going to keep fighting or not. I was battling signing the fight contract because I didn’t know if I was retiring or not, didn’t know how much longer I wanted to keep doing this. My kids are getting older. I don’t want to keep taking damage. Training camps are hard. Life has really taken its toll the past 11 months, so (I) just need to step away for a little bit, maybe forever.”
Throughout his UFC career, Turner was able to enter the top 15 UFC lightweight rankings by scoring finishes over the likes of Jamie Mullarkey, Brad Riddell and King Green.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 313.
