There is a fear that grips all fighters, regardless of their talent, a sense of awareness that what was once their future has now become their past and that they are powerless to make a new beginning in a sport that favors youth, strength, and speed.
Having relentlessly tester their skill in combat for the whole of their professional lives, many fighters are hesitant, if not outright unwilling, to submerge themselves in the bleak abyss of retirement.
Not content with coaching, commentating, managing, or any of the more mundane aspects of MMA, great fighters will often attempt to push themselves beyond their physical limits by competing against opponents who have evolved to such an extent that they have rendered the abilities of their predecessors obsolete (see Coleman vs. Rua II and Shamrock vs. Diaz for excellent examples of this phenomenon).
Fueled by past glories that were all too fleeting and the adrenaline rush they received when their hand was raised in victory, former champions see retirement as a form of acquiescence; a giving in to the ravages of time and a personal admission of their inability to perform at an elite level.
Oftentimes, the acceptance of one's mortality is a bitter pill to swallow, so bitter in fact that a fighter would rather risk injury or public mockery than admit that he is no longer capable of duplicating those feats of endurance and youthful physicality that initially made him such an overwhelming success.
While such battle-hardened competitors run the stylistic gamut from the absurd (Tank Abbot, Ken Shamrock, Phil Baroni) to the truly legendary (Randy Couture, Wanderlei Silva, Matt Hughes), all suffer from a failure to comprehend that their best fights are behind them and that the future holds no promise of another title shot.
Perhaps the most recognizable adherent to this lamentable trend is none of than perennial fan favorite Randy Couture, whose less than stellar outing against Brock Lesnar proved that time is quickly catching up with the former champion.
At 45 years of age, Couture is not only the elder statesman of the UFC but also the oldest fighter in the world to be battling top ten heavyweights.
His compulsive desire to compete, coupled with his refusal to relinquish his championship hopes, has blinded Couture to the fact that his skills, which formidable, will not be enough to allow him to advance in the heavyweight division.
Rather than continue to subject himself to the ignominy of death, Couture should have retired after he annihilated Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 74.
Had he made a clean break from MMA in 2007, Couture would have saved himself the trouble of a lengthy legal confrontation with UFC president Dana White, as well as a disappointing "comeback" loss to Brock Lesnar.
As it stands, Couture is currently entrenched in the purgatorial portion of his MMA career. Even if he were to defeat Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 102, the chance of Couture receiving a title shot against either Frank Mir or Brock Lesnar are tenuous, at best.
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