UFC lightweight Spencer Fisher hasn’t officially closed the book on his career, but he admits he is pretty darn close.
The 36-year-old Fisher, who meets Sam Stout for a third time this Friday at UFC on FX 4, confirmed with MMAFighting.com this week that he’s “pretty sure” Friday’s fight will be his last.
“I’ve been missing a lot of stuff with my family,” he said. “It gets tougher and tougher as they get older.”
Fisher, who trained for this fight with Kings MMA in Huntington Beach, Calif., also pointed to mounting injuries over the years as another reason why he thinks this may be the right time to walk away. However, he did admit that a first-round knockout against his old Canadian foe Stout would force him to strongly reconsider his future plans.
“The King” enters this fight having lost four his last five fights. He first met Stout at UFC 58 six years ago in what was Fisher’s lightweight debut. On that night, Stout bested Fisher via split decision, but the fight was so close and so exciting, that the UFC pitted the fighters against each other the following year at UFC Fight Night 10 in June 2007. Fisher would get revenge on Stout in Florida defeating “Hands of Stone” via unanimous decision.
Fisher, a 10-year veteran of the sport, believes their third fight will largely resemble the first two, which means few takedown attempts and many punches thrown. He said despite the losing streak and retirement talk, he hasn’t felt any extra pressure heading into Friday night.
“No pressure,” he said. “I want to go out there and fight. Swing for the fences.”
Fisher added that he likes the fact that he knows exactly what he is going to get from Stout.
“I don’t have to find him,” he said. “He’ll be right there in the middle.”
Over the past year we’ve seen veterans like Chris Lytle and Jorge Rivera announce their retirement on fight week and stick with those plans (at least for now) despite looking good in victory. Fisher, on the other hand, has left the door a tiny bit open in case a vintage performance materializes in Atlantic City, N.J., but he has already come to terms with the fact that Friday’s trilogy fight with Stout could very well be his last.
“It kinda makes sense right now,” he said.