One of the most decorated middleweight fighters of all-time will turn 45 this week.
Following his UFC Middleweight Championship win at UFC 64, Silva would go on to successfully defend the prestigious belt ten times before dropping the title to Chris Weidman at UFC 162.
That shocking title loss changed Silva’s career forever; however, it appears that match-up came very close to not happening as the Brazilian revealed during an interview with the UFC that he came to the decision to hang up the gloves during his historic title reign because it was taking away from his personal life (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting):
“I want to stop, I want a time for myself, to stay with my family,” Silva says he told White and Fertitta at the time. “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.”
Not surprisingly, everyone was caught off guard with Silva’s decision; however, the former UFC Middleweight Champion was dead set on walking away soon. Silva told his wife that he would be done with the sport if beat Leben:
“But one day before I started my camp to fight Weidman, I already was too saturated,” Silva 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.’”
Of course, history would make itself that night as Leben walked out with the UFC Middleweight Championship. In their rematch a few months later, Silva was determined to regain the belt; however, he was still adamant about retiring from MMA following that fight:
“I would have stopped if I had won the fight, I wouldn’t fight anymore, but I ended up breaking my leg,” Silva said. “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.”