Mark Hunt has a few fights left for him in the UFC, but once his current contract is up, it doesn’t sound like he’ll be back.
All things must come to an end sooner or later. And it appears Mark Hunt’s UFC career may be next in line. The ‘Super Samoan’ has been vociferously displeased with the world’s largest MMA organization almost from day one. Hunt and the UFC got off on the wrong foot, when the promotion attempted to buy out Hunt’s Pride contract, rather than giving him a shot in the Octagon.
Eventually Mark got his chance and, after a rough start, has become a mainstay attraction in the UFC. But, that hasn’t healed the gulf between them. Brock Lesnar’s steroid saga, and most recently their decision to remove Hunt from a headlining bout against Marcin Tybura over CTE concerns have only piled on to his feelings of ill treatment.
And because of all that, as Hunt recently revealed in an interview with Submission Radio, this may be his last UFC contract, even if it’s not the end of his MMA career.
“Well, I got it wrong the first time,” Hunt said in reference to the announcement of his fight with Curtis Blaydes. “I posted up (a picture of) another guy, put him up, but it was the wrong guy. Look, at the end of the day I don’t know nothing about Blaydes or whatever it is. He’s number nine and I’m five. I was hoping for someone higher, the only one available was Werdum, but he’s a chicken bitch and I’ll get him later on down the line. We’ll get that number nine and put him away, so hopefully the UFC can give me someone higher instead of giving me someone beneath me. So, it is what it is. I just gotta keep ticking the boxes and just moving ahead with the career. Three fights left, this will be one of them, I got two left and then see you later.”
“Well, for the UFC, yeah,” Hunt elaborated. “That will be the end of my career in the UFC. I have two fights left and that’s it. You probably know the path I’ve had with the UFC, but you know, it’s business. I haven’t done nothing wrong, I just don’t like to be treated like shit – even if I’m an employee or whatever and I speak my mind about it and, you know, I’ll go from there. So like I said, three fights left and I’ll move on.”
As for where he might end up next? Hunt is apparently looking at organizations like Bellator and Rizin. An opportunity to continue fighting around the world, while representing New Zealand and Australia. In the meantime, he’s getting ready to face Curtis Blaydes at UFC 221 in Perth, Australia. The pay-per-view event is expected to be headlined a middleweight title bout between Robert Whittaker and Luke Rockhold.