You can’t blame any fighter for choosing to come out of retirement. The nice pay day that comes along with another high-level MMA fight sure beats what you can make giving seminars or coaching. But the comebacks listed here could not have gone worse, and ended up tarnishing the legacy of the fighter, even if it did pad their bank account.
A notable omission on this list is Fedor Emelianenko. While Fedor has looked like a shadow of his former self since returning, he has been successful, even if he has benefited from some shady judging. He is 5W-0L since returning, although Fabio Maldonado may dispute the results of one of those bouts.
The hard truth of it is that very few fighters who come out of retirement are successful, though it does happen occasionally. Many fighters on this list were just too old to make a comeback, or in some cases the sport had just passed them by.
Here are six catastrophic comebacks the should have never happened…
6. Royce Gracie
Who doesn’t love Royce Gracie? Consider what he has meant to jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts as a whole and it’s hard not to root for the guy. But he should have never returned to the UFC to face Matt Hughes.
Royce was almost 40 when he fought Matt Hughes at UFC 60. Matt Hughes by contrast was 32 and in his athletic prime. The results of this fight were never really in question. Hughes dominated him and finished the fight with a minute left in the first round.
To a certain extent Gracie retained his dignity by refusing to tap to a straight arm-bar, but it still hurt to see him dominated like that.
The next year Gracie would avenge his loss to Sakuraba, but fail a post-fight steroid test. He would return again during Scott Coker’s period of senior-citizen MMA promoting at Bellator 149, defeating Ken Shamrock in what was a difficult fight to watch for just about everyone.
