Changing priorities influenced Carla Esparza’s decision to retire after UFC 307.
Esparza will be returning from a pregnancy and birth crisis in a rematch against Tesia Pennington on October 5 at UFC 307 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Upon announcing her return, “The Cookie Monster” also revealed that it will be her final fight.
Esparza recently spoke at length about his decision to retire, citing a variety of factors. In an unforgiving sport, Esparza noted, the best fighters have often suffered major falls from glory as they near the end of their careers, including BJ Penn, Anderson Silva and Tony Ferguson. Esparza isn’t desperately clinging onto the roster, but after having children, he’s not as dedicated as he once was. And for the former two-time UFC strawweight champion, not giving it his all would feel like an injustice to the sport.
“As I’ve seen so many times, this sport kind of pushes you to push yourself,” Esparza told MMAFighting.com. “It’s just brutal defeat after brutal defeat. Honestly, I’ve watched my heroes fight over the years and it’s tough to watch. I never wanted to be that way with the fans. We all lose, we all suffer brutal defeats. I’ve been done and I’ve come back and I don’t necessarily think my body has pushed me to the place where it’s really pushed me, downhill. I still feel like I’m good enough to compete, but the amount of time it takes to get older, to recover, to prepare for each training session and avoid injury is enormous. I wish I could show up to training and go right back, but it takes a lot of dedication to get to this level and train smart. I don’t want to do this sport half-heartedly. If I’m going to do it, I want to give it my all and give it the attention and time it deserves.”
For some fighters, the decision to retire can be influenced by a lack of motivation after years of pushing their bodies too hard. That’s not the case for Esparza, who remains highly dedicated in the gym after nearly 15 years of a career. But the 37-year-old can’t deny the toll professional fighting takes on the body, and Esparza feels it would be selfish to continue to focus on her career and not her son.
“I struggled a lot with this decision,” Esparza said. “I always said that if this sport was no longer fun, if I lost my passion, then it would be time to retire. But that didn’t happen. I still go to training hungry to learn. When my coach shows me something, I’m like, ‘Okay, these are my steps, this is how I need to go around.’ I’m still very passionate about learning and growing and evolving in this sport. So for me, it just wasn’t about that. It’s a lot of things.”
“I wish my body was in the same state as my mind. I’ve heard a lot of my teammates say that once you turn 30, you start to feel it, and it’s definitely true. I’ll be 37 the week after this fight, so this machine is definitely getting pretty old. Plus, being a parent comes with its own set of tricks. Everyone does it differently, but I think being a parent is the most selfless thing I’ve ever done and being a fighter is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. All my focus is on me and what I need to do to be the best I can be. That’s No. 1 for me. My priorities have just shifted a little bit right now.”
Esparza became the inaugural UFC strawweight champion in 2014 when she defeated Rose Namajunas in the final bout of season 20 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” but lost the title to Joanna Jedrzejczyk the following year. She would win the strawweight championship for a second time nearly a decade later, winning a split decision in a rematch against “Thug” at UFC 274 in 2022. “The Cookie Monster” lost the title to Zhang Weili via second-round submission at UFC 281 later that year and hasn’t fought since. Esparza will now be looking to ride off into the sunset with a win over Pennington, whom she defeated by majority decision in the quarterfinals of “TUF 20.”
