UFC 313 featured one of the most surprising retirements that we have seen in MMA for quite some time.
On March 8 in Las Vegas, Jalin Turner suffered his second consecutive loss and called time on his career in the immediate aftermath of the fight.
Turner confirmed his decision to retire via a social media post where he apologized to the fans and explained why he had come to this decision.
With ‘The Tarantula’ no longer having that fire inside of him to keep pushing at 29-years-old, Dana White agreed with Turner’s decision to step away.
On the other hand, Ignacio Bahamondes earned a lightweight ranking spot after submitting his opponent in the first round via triangle choke.
Jalin Turner opens up about not having the desire to compete at UFC 313
In a recent interview with Submission Radio, Jalin Turner spoke in detail about his decision to retire and when this thought first entered his mind.
‘The Tarantula’ arrived in the UFC back in 2018 where after some ups and downs, he put a five-fight win streak together to climb up the lightweight ladder and emerge as a potential future star of the division.
Turner has since gone 1-4 in his last five, losing narrow split decisions to Mateusz Gamrot and Dan Hooker, bouncing back with a devastating knockout against King Green before being stopped by Renato Moicano and Bahamondes.
He revealed that the idea of retiring seriously started to play on his mind after his loss to Moicano at UFC 300 where he said that he no longer had the desire to push through the pressure that comes with fighting.
Turner stated that he didn’t even want to fight at UFC 313 originally until he saw it as an opportunity to try and conquer his fears.
“I talked to my management and I’m like, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna take this fight, I need some more time’. I ended up seeing the fight contract, I don’t know why, I don’t know what happened but I still got sent the fight contract and I prayed about it, thought about it and I was like man, I feel like God told me not to let fear win so I got the contract and I was like alright, I’m gonna do it.
“I’ll just do it, get over this fear, just overcome what I feel is bothering me. That’s something I always pride myself on is getting over my fears, it’s how I got the nickname ‘Tarantula’ to begin with… It felt like I really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to overcome it. I didn’t want to push past it, I just didn’t have the desire to push through it.”
Jalin Turner stresses that these feelings are not exclusive
Jalin Turner made sure that he wanted to get one message across after speaking out on the pressure and fear that he felt during his UFC career.
He wanted to stress that these feelings are not exclusive to him and his story with many fighters battling the same emotions when they step inside the Octagon.
The difference for him is that he no longer has the passion and drive to put himself through all of that in order to compete.
“The thing I want fans to understand is all these things are normal. When you fight, when you sign that contract, you get afraid. You’re afraid of your opponent, you get fearful, you get scared, you don’t want to do it. You think about, ‘Oh man, I hope he slips and falls on the way to the Octagon so we don’t have to fight.’ You think all these things and it’s normal.”