‘I don’t want to retire like Cejudo’ - Teixeira wants to ‘stay cool’
The recently crowned light heavyweight champion hopes to ride off into the sunset by the end of 2022 and never look back.
Even with an upcoming title defense against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 275, it sounds like Glover Teixeira’s run as a professional fighter is coming to a close. The 42-year-old, competing out of Danbury, CT, made history on October 30th of last year—when he defeated Jan Blachowicz to become the second oldest champion in UFC history (behind Randy Couture, who turned 45 shortly before losing his heavyweight title to Brock Lesnar in 2008).
While he’s clearly still got some fuel left in the tank, it seems Teixeira is set on wrapping up his remarkable 20-year MMA run sometime in 2022. In a recent interview with Combate’s ‘Mundo da Luta’ podcast (translated by MMAFighting), the Brazilian-born fighter talked about his plans for the future. Most notably that he hopes to defend his belt in June, and compete one last time at an (as yet unreported) UFC event in New York in November—for a farewell bout close to his adopted home state.
“The perfect plan would be winning this fight, which I have full focus on,” Teixeira admitted. “And fighting one last time in November, in New York, which is close to the city I live for 20 years, and close to my gym. It would be my farewell from fighting. That’s what I’m thinking right now.”
“I’ll be 43 in November,” he added. “Regardless of being at the top, being the best of the world or not, I wanna stop this year. It will probably be my last year. I don’t wanna make this decision after a fight, but it’s what I’ve been thinking for a while. I don’t wanna retire like [Henry] Cejudo, who keeps asking for a fight all the time. I want to retire and stay cool.
“I think that’s the perfect plan. The perfect plan is to retire with the belt this year, but we have a lot to do. We have to see if it could be in New York, and I still have to beat a guy that is tough as hell. That’s my idea.”
UFC 275: Teixeira vs. Prochazka takes place on June 11th in Kallang, Singapore. Alongside the light heavyweight main event, the card is expected to feature a women’s flyweight title bout between champion Valentina Shevchenko and challenger Taila Santos. A rematch of the 2020 FOTY between ex-champs Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Weili Zhang has also been set for the PPV event.