Anderson Silva wanted to retire before he was knocked out by Chris Weidman back at UFC 162.
Entering the fight, Silva was 33-4 and had seven title defenses under his belt. He was a sizeable favorite against the then-undefeated American in Weidman. Although the Brazilian was atop of the sport he revealed he was close to retiring before that fight.
“I want to stop, I want time for myself, to stay with my family,” Silva said in a new interview with the UFC (via MMAFighting). “I have been doing this for years and I’m losing contact with my kids. I’m only training and training, it’s not working for me anymore.”
Silva ended up postponing those retirement plans but said if he beat Weidman he would retire on the spot. Of course, the Brazilian ended up losing by knockout and continued on with his career.
“But one day before I started my camp to fight Weidman, I already was too saturated,” he said. “I never talked about this, never used this term ‘if I win.’ I said to (my wife), ‘If I win, I’ll stop, I won’t fight anymore.'”
He then gave himself one more fight, the rematch with Weidman at UFC 168. He once again said if he won he would retire. But, he ended up breaking his leg and decided to continue on with his career.
“I would have stopped if I had won the fight, I wouldn’t fight anymore, but I ended up breaking my leg,” he added. “I think that was a message from God saying to me, ‘Look, man, you’re not supposed to stop yet. It took so long for you to get here and now you want to stop?’ I don’t know, I think those are subliminal messages that stay in your head.”
Anderson Silva last fought back at UFC 237 where he suffered a TKO loss to Jared Cannonier.
