Stephen Thompson is done after UFC 334. The 43-year-old welterweight confirmed that his Nov. 14 fight against Charles Radtke at Madison Square Garden will be the final MMA bout of his career.
“It’s my last one,” Thompson told Ozoon ahead of the New York card. “And what better place to have it than Madison Square Garden, New York City?”
The venue choice writes its own footnote. Thompson’s first shot at UFC gold came at UFC 205 in 2016, the first event the promotion ever held in New York City, where he fought Tyron Woodley to a draw for the welterweight title. Woodley took the 2017 rematch by majority decision. Those two fights were the peak of a run that started in 2012 and now stands at 22 Octagon appearances.
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What surprised me is that he isn’t citing his body. Thompson said he feels healthy and could keep competing. The deciding factor is at home.
“My body feels good, I feel great. Like, I can keep going. But I have a baby girl,” he said. “[I’m] ‘Wonderdad’ now. So that definitely changes your mindset a little bit.”
He also left a crack in the door, saying “you might see me again” once his daughter is older. Before anyone starts booking a comeback, he spelled out what that would look like. Any future appearance would probably come somewhere with lower stakes, like Real American Freestyle or Karate Combat, and he said nothing is currently lined up. He was clear about MMA. Once UFC 334 is in the books, he has no plans to take his career to the PFL or any other promotion.
The record says the timing makes sense. Thompson is 17-9-1 and has lost five of his last six. His lone win in that stretch was a 2022 victory over Kevin Holland, with losses on either side to top contenders, including Shavkat Rakhmonov and, most recently, Gabriel Bonfim. That’s a tough run for anyone, and he’s been in there with the deep end of the division the whole time.
For most of his career, Thompson was the guy nobody at 170 wanted to see on the matchup sheet. The karate-based style that carried him up the rankings was awkward to prepare for, with all the bladed stance and range work most welterweights had never dealt with in a training camp. He made good fighters look like they were chasing a rumor for 15 minutes.
My take: I’ll always respect a fighter who answers the retirement question straight, and Thompson did exactly that. He didn’t blame injuries or hedge with some vague line about deciding after this one. His body’s fine, his daughter is the reason, and he named the date, the opponent and the building. Two title fights, one draw that New York still talks about, and a full decade of making contenders look silly is a career most welterweights would sign for in a heartbeat. He gets one more walk at the Garden on Nov. 14, and Radtke gets the strangest assignment on the card, which is spoiling a farewell in front of a crowd that came to say goodbye.
