Brad Pickett wanted a win in his retirement fight at UFC Fight Night 107, but he walked away with a loss instead. Despite the loss in his final MMA fight, the now retired Pickett finds himself at peace.
“It’s me, it’s my fighting style – live by the sword, die by the sword,” Pickett said at the UFC Fight Night 107 post-fight conference. “Like I said, I fight for the fans. I could’ve maybe, I didn’t have trouble taking him down when I went for the takedown, so I could’ve just taken him down laid on him and make it boring. But for me, I wanted to be in a typical Brad Pickett fight, and a typical Brad Pickett fight would’ve been to get up from that and kept on fighting, but unfortunately my age didn’t let me get up as quick as I could, you know. I told the referee before the fight, ‘let me go stiff,’ and I felt I was okay a little bit, but obviously I have to look at it back. I love [referee] Grant Waterman, and I know he’s got a job to do.”
Pickett now retires with a professional MMA record of 25-14-0. The one thing Pickett plans on doing in his retirement is to build up his own MMA promotion.
“This sport is my life, I would love to stay involved in the sport,” Pickett said. “One of my passions would be top open my gym in South London and pass my knowledge onto the young, aspiring athletes, and also, I love this company so I don’t know maybe if I speak to the right people there’s somewhere for me. I love this sport, this sport is my life and I definitely don’t want to leave this sport. I also run my own fight promotion, Rise of Champions, so I’m going to concentrate more on that now, which I had to put on hold because I had back-to-back fights, and now I have a lot more time on my hands.”
If there was one thing Pickett can find solace in as it pertains to how his career ended, it's that it happened in his home country of England.
