After coming out of semi-retirement to fight Anderson Silva at UFC 153, Stephan Bonnar has decided to call it a career.
“Huge thanks to every UFC fan out there! All I ever wanted was to bring ya’ll some fun…hope u were entertained. Peace, love, & violence!” said Bonnar through his Facebook page.
Bonnar finishes with a 15-8 record, including memorable bouts with Krzysztof Soszynski, Mark Coleman and Forrest Griffin.
Bonnar never really climbed that close to a title opportunity in his career, but he definitely saved the UFC with his TUF 1 finale bout with the future light-heavyweight champion, and later down the road, he faced current champ Jon Jones, losing each by decision.
The truth is, there really is a bunch of things that we will remember about Bonnar‘s career, even out of the Octagon.
Remember his skit with Chael Sonnen at the World MMA Awards in 2011 or his tales from the TUF house on SPIKE’s MMA Uncensored?
His fight with Silva is a big memory for his career, as it showed that with a long layoff, he was able to use his speed to catch even the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world off guard to start the bout. Bonnar even held his own for a brief period of the fight, using the cage to keep Silva under control before getting knocked out.
That was the first time Bonnar was knocked out, as his two previous TKO losses were for cuts.
He hasn’t been submitted, and although he was knocked out, Bonnar wasn’t doing too badly, winning three in a row before UFC 153.
Is he Hall of Fame worthy? That’s another article for another day, but it raises the question on how he will be remembered.
That’s up to you to decide; so how do you think the “American Psycho” will be remembered?
Mark Pare is a Featured Columnist. You can follow him on Twitter, and don’t forget to check out his sportswriter page.
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