Ryan Hall has had an incredibly long combat sports career and has been competing in MMA for over a decade now, fighting in the UFC cage since winning The Ultimate Fighter 22 back in 2015. Now, at the age of 36 and coming off his first knockout loss against Ilia Topuria, it’s understandable that some fans might be wondering how much longer Hall will be competing. According to Hall however, he will not be retiring any time soon and he intends to continue fighting for many more years to come:
“There was a period of time where I was wondering how much time was left, because I haven’t taken much damage but I have been around martial arts at a high level for a long time. But I want to fight into my 40s. I want to take this as far as I possibly can, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Hall does make a good point though, while he hasn’t received a whole lot of damage during his career, he has accumulated a fair amount of injuries over the years that have contributed to the relatively slow development of his professional MMA career. This is pretty par for the course when it comes to any professional athlete of course and isn’t unique to grapplers or fighters, although it’s certainly something that might contribute to his eventual decision to retire in the future.
It isn’t just MMA that Ryan Hall will be competing in for the foreseeable future either as ADCC head organizer Mo Jassim recently revealed that he has been interested in receiving an invite to compete at the 2022 ADCC world championships as well. While that no doubt sounds exciting to any grappling fans, Hall is staying laser-focused on his upcoming fight with Darrick Minner at UFC 269:
“I want to finish Darrick Minner on Saturday. And then I want to fight back into the rankings, and then I want a rematch with Ilia Topuria, and then I want to move forward… I want to fight the best opposition that I possibly can. I’m looking forward to facing Darrick Minner. He’s a tough guy. He’s a step in that direction. But i look forward to fighting consistently and frequently for years to come. That’s all I can say… I’ve dealt with a lot of frustration and I didn’t really… put my best foot forward last go-round for a series of reasons. All that matters is that we’re here at this point and I’m excited to get back to it.”
The full interview with Ryan Hall where he discusses his upcoming fight at UFC 269 and his MMA career as a whole was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Andrew Whitelaw, and can be seen below:
