Edson Barboza could be entering the octagon for the final time Saturday, when he battles Esteban Ribovics on the main card of UFC 330 in Philadelphia, and he’s at peace with that.
At 40 years of age, and 32 UFC fights under his belt, a legendary run against four future lightweight champions and some all-time greats, Barboza won’t say out loud he’s treating this as his retirement bout, but the fact he knows it’s a possibility lifts a huge weight off his shoulders.
“Honestly, I’m not even thinking about
that,” Barboza told MMA Fighting when asked about who could be his next opponent. “I’m just enjoying the moment, because I know the finish line is getting closer, you know? It’s like when you’re running a marathon and your body is in the final stretch and the finish line is right there. That’s why I’m not thinking too far ahead. I’m just thinking about this next fight. This next fight could be the finish line, man. I don’t know. Honestly, I’m focused on the moment, on this next fight.
“If I feel good, if I want to continue, which is the most important thing, and if I’m physically in good shape to keep going, I’ll keep going. But if not, I’m a very happy person, and I’m very comfortable with everything I’ve accomplished in my career. I think if I wanted to retire today, I could definitely put my head on the pillow and sleep peacefully because I know I gave my best and did everything I was supposed to do. I’m not thinking about anything beyond this fight. I’m just focused on the next one. Who knows? It could be the last one, it might not be. We’ll see what happens.”
Victorious in 18 of 32 bouts in the UFC, beating the likes of Dan Hooker, Beneil Dariush, Gilbert Melendez, Anthony Pettis, Paul Felder and King Green, the Brazilian striker said his ultimate call will be made regardless of the result Saturday.
“The decision is made in the moment,” Barboza said. “It doesn’t matter what happens. Whether it ends there, whether I make that decision in the locker room, the week before, or tonight, right now, I don’t know, man. Like I said, I’m just enjoying the moment. I’m still having fun. I love what I do. We’ll see, man. I’m open to stopping this right now, at any moment. Until recently, I was always thinking about the next fight. Now, I just want to focus on this one. After this happens, we’ll see what happens.”
“There’s no longer that crazy pressure of feeling like I have to fight and keep going,” he continued. “Thank God I made some very good financial decisions for myself and my family. Thank God things are going very well, so we don’t have that feeling of, ‘Oh my God, I have to fight because if I don’t fight, I won’t make money and my family is going to struggle.’”
When Barboza walks away from the cage for the final time, at UFC 330 or later, he will go down as one of the most technical and vicious strikers in the division. None of that mean much to him in the end, though.
“That’s a burden I try not to carry. ‘How do you think you’ll be remembered.’ Honestly, man, if my wife and my two kids remember me, I’ll already be very happy,” Barboza said. “Why am I saying that? My father and mother passed away recently. I went through that loss, they passed on to be with the Lord recently, and I loved my parents so much. My parents were everything to me. And there are days when, I swear to you, I forget. My father and mother don’t even cross my mind, and then, all of a sudden, I miss them. You think, ‘Damn, how long has it been since I thought about my dad and my mom?’
“So when you ask me, ‘Do you want the fans to remember you, what you did and everything?’ No, man. I think if my son or my daughter, years from now, stop and look back and say, ‘Damn, Dad was a great fighter,’ I’ll already be extremely happy. And if people remember me and say, ‘Brother, that Barboza guy was a badass. He was a true fighter.’ If one day people remember me, I hope they can say, ‘Barboza was a fighter, man. A fighter in every sense of the word. A fighter to be a good father, to be a responsible man, a fighter inside the cage. The guy was a fighter.’”
Being closer to his wife and kids without being constantly in camp “might be one of the things that weighs on me the most,” Barboza admits, because “I’ve missed a lot of things with my family because I’ve always trained, I’ve always been extremely dedicated.”
“I missed some moments with my kids, especially moments with my wife, and I know those moments aren’t coming back,” he continued. “You miss them and that’s it. They’re gone. But I have the opportunity to have those moments again from now on. That’s one of the things that weighs on me the most, man. I love my career, I love fighting, I love training and everything, but missing those moments with my family hurts me a lot. It hurts me deeply. That definitely weighs heavily on the scale when I think about whether I’m going to stop or not.”
Barboza guarantees he still feels “that feeling in my stomach” walking into his 39th professional fight and that’s why he won’t commit to retirement just yet. The difference this time, he said, was finally taking a break from training after his most recent loss to Turner in December. Barboza would still go to the gym and lift weights eventually, swim and cycle, but tried his best not to think about fighting, camps or opponents for a while.
“The craziest thing about this whole story is that I never took vacations,” Barboza said. “I would always fight and then immediately start training again. For the first time in my career, I fought in December and said, ‘My brother, in January I’m not even going to think about fighting.’ I actually rested, mentally and physically. It was the first time in my career, at 40 years old, that I took some time off from fighting. And that’s why it took me a while to start training again in February.”
“As a high-level athlete, the last thing we care about is our health,” he added. “We’re hurt, we’re in pain, and we just go. We keep going and going. I feel really good right now because I actually spent two months, even a little more, taking care of my physical condition, my nutrition, and my health. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. The first thing I noticed very clearly was my physical condition. We always get hurt during camp because of the amount of training. It’s normal. When I started this camp, I was healthy. I was like, ‘Oh my God, something is wrong.’ And automatically you think, ‘If I feel this good, it must mean I’m not training enough.’ But no. I was actually in really good shape. I was genuinely healthy going into a camp. No pain, no injuries, none of those things we always deal with, and I was also mentally lighter.”
Ribovics, his opponent at UFC 330, is 10 years younger and recently lost a decision to Barboza’s American Top Team teammate Mateusz Gamrot. Barboza said he “got some of the information I needed” from Gamrot, and sees the Argentine talent as a tough competitor.
“Everyone knows I have 32 fights in the UFC, and I fight whoever the UFC sends me,” Barboza said. “It’s as simple as that. It’s another fight. They offered him to me, and I always say yes. If this is the fight you guys want me to take, then let’s go to war. He’s an extremely courageous guy, and it’s the kind of fight everyone likes to watch. I know he’s going to come forward, I’m going to come forward, and we’re going to beat each other up.”
“I won’t be surprised if he tries to take me down because that’s happened with everyone I’ve fought,” he continued. “I fought [Donald] Cerrone, an excellent striker, who tried to take me down. I fought Anthony Pettis, I don’t even need to say anything about him, he’s one of the best strikers ever, and he also tried to take me down. I’m always prepared to defend takedowns and keep the fight standing, where I like to fight and where I feel confident.”
