When should fighters walk away from the sport?

Mark Hunt and Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva engage in a brutal war at UFC 193 in November of 2015.

Combat sports are inherently dangerous. The entire point of the sport is to render your opponent unable to continue before he can do the same to you. So it's no surprise that many fighters don't have long careers, at least at the top of the sport, and those that do tend to show the effects of their brutal craft.

But when should a fighter decide enough is enough and walk away?

Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva has been fighting professionally since 2005 and has a record of 19-12-1. His claim to fame is being the first man to defeat the legendary Fedor Emelianenko when he submitted the Russian in 2011. After entering the UFC in 2012, Silva only managed three wins from 2012 to 2016. He's lost eight of his last ten fights and has been knocked out in all but one of those losses after only being knocked out twice in his career previously. In recent fights, Silva has looked noticeably different than in the past, his movement is slower and his technique has dropped off considerably. It could be argued that age (he's 37) plays a role, especially in the heavyweight division. But the evidence also points to the sheer amount of damage Silva has absorbed throughout his career. Rather than retire once he was let go by the UFC however, Silva has continued to fight in different promotions in Russia, where the safety standards and drug testing are much more relaxed than in the US.

Mark Hunt, on the other hand, turned 43 years old this year. The New Zealand fighter has been a professional in MMA since 2004 and a kickboxer since 1999. That's over twenty years in combat sports and Hunt has shown that he still has what it takes to be competitive against some of the best in the world. Hunt is 13-11-1 in his MMA career but has won three of his last five fights, with one of the two losses being overturned due to his opponent testing positive for steroids. He's coming off of a Fight of the Night win over Derrick Lewis in June, a fighter who was thought to be the next big thing in the division. So evidence would suggest that, unlike Silva, Hunt could and should keep fighting? 

Maybe not, considering what he said in a piece for Players Voice recently titled "If I die fighting, that's fine."

"My body is f--ked but my mind is still here," he said. "I’ve still got my senses about me and I know what’s right and wrong, which is the main thing...You can hear me starting to stutter and slur my words. My memory is not that good anymore. I’ll forget something I did yesterday but I can remember the s--t I did years and years ago. That’s just the price I’ve paid—the price of being a fighter."

While Hunt may see it as "just the price he's paid", that could easily be seen as a reason to hang it up and walk away from the sport altogether. However, he's scheduled to face Marcin Tybura in November and has two more fights left on his UFC contract after that so it appears he's not going anywhere anytime soon.