If you haven’t heard, Roy Jones Jr lost by TKO to Danny Green last night, at 2:02 into the first round. Now, Danny Green is an excellent Australian fighter, and he has the IBO cruiserweight belt, but he is nowhere near what Roy Jones Jr was in his heyday. That’s not meant to be insulting to Green. I just want to highlight how shocking it is that Jones got done in so quickly, in the manner that he did, and that it’s surprising he lost at all if you think about his abilities when he was in his prime.

It highlights a problem that fight sports have had forever – when should a fighter retire? Well, I personally hope that most fighters know to retire before they get retired. In a perfect world, that would be the case, but in reality it’s hard to stop a fighter from competing. We aren’t talking guys who are too unhealthy to get a doctor’s clearance, after all. They have simply lost the natural athleticism to keep fighting the top echelons of talent.

In MMA, there are a whole bunch of fighters who are still good, and who can still put up a hell of a fight and even win, but who should at least consider retirement. The most obvious are Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. Couture has a style that allows him to keep fighting fairly safely into his 40s, he just cannot take a clear victory anymore. Liddell may only need some time to recover, but he should at least consider retirement after going 1-4 in his last 5 fights. With some distance from his fight against Shogun, I don’t think his last loss was actually quite as bad as it seemed at the time. It will be interesting to hear how Liddell feels next year, and it’s heartening that he would prefer to retire after testing himself training rather than be retired in the cage.

The most painful example of delayed retirement in MMA would have to be Ken Shamrock, though, who finally won a fight after 5 losses in a row, only to test positive for banned substances afterwards. Even if he’s telling the truth and it is a false positive, Shamrock beat a guy who was 6-8 before that fight – hardly the quality of opponent he demolished in his best years. Anyone who’s seen Ken’s fights with Bas Rutten in Pancrase will know that there was a time when he really did live up to his nickname of ‘The Most Dangerous Man Alive’.

If an absolute cap had to be given for fighting, I’d say all fighters have to call it quits by 40. I know that age isn’t quite the kiss of death that everyone thinks it is, but no athlete reaches 40 without some diminishment in abilities. I admit that absolutes are always ridiculous, though, so perhaps trainers just need to be more responsible in telling fighters when they should start thinking about calling it a day.

It’s sad to see a great fighter retire, but it feels worse to see a former champion losing to opposition that would have posed no problem back in the day. Glory is the worst thing of all to be addicted to, but champions have to be hooked on it to stay at the top. The mark of a true champion is the ability to recognize when your body has had its time, and not to fight into poor health and ridicule.