Paul Felder never reached the mountaintop. He never fought for a UFC title, never progressed beyond the status of a low top-10 contender at lightweight. But you’ll find few fighters who enjoy more respect from fans and fellow fighters than Felder, one of the all-action pillars of the UFC’s signature division over the last six years.
Felder announced his retirement on Saturday night, while on color commentary for the UFC Fight Night show.. After such a sterling career, Felder deserved better than breaking the news through a headset on ESPN+, in an empty UFC Apex, in between Norma Dumont and Jared Vanderaa fights. He deserved to do it in front of a cheering crowd, the kind he thrilled routinely over the course of his time in the Octagon.
Yet, it still didn’t come as a surprise. Felder is 37 years old, has a promising future as a commentator ahead of him, and had hinted at retirement as far back as 2019. He fought twice in 2020, both fantastic five-round wars, but all the while questioned his competitive drive at this stage of his career.
Felder wanted to go out the right way. He’s seen too many great fighters be forced into retirement after taking too much punishment. He’s retiring now, on his own terms, while he still has plenty left in the tank. He just doesn’t have the same drive as he used to, and Paul Felder was never the type of fighter to cheat the fans of his fullest effort.
Felder has been a fan favorite almost since he signed with the UFC in 2014. He was never a five-star athlete, and lacked the next-level talent to become a champion. But he was amazingly tough, smart, and always down for a brawl. In a career where he faced some real great stars – he’s notably the last man to beat current lightweight champion Charles Oliveira – he never got his ass kicked. And he had a skill for drawing his opponents into slugfests, where the “Irish Dragon” thrived.
Even as his competitive interest waned, his spirit in the cage was never questioned. He fought twice in 2020, the last two MMA bouts of his career, and both were epic stories. In February, Felder went to war for five rounds with Dan Hooker in Hooker’s native New Zealand, in a fantastic display of technical striking and sheer heart. It was one of the best fights of 2020. Felder lost a split decision – although the majority of media outlets scored the bout in Felder’s favor – but earned the respect of everyone in the house.
And in November, Felder put on perhaps the single most badass losing effort in the history of mixed martial arts. With less than a week to go before Islam Makhachev faced former world champion Rafael dos Anjos in the main event of a UFC Apex show, Makhachev was forced to withdraw due to a staph infection. With the entire show in jeopardy, Felder – who was scheduled to be on commentary for the card – stepped in for five rounds, with an all-time great, on five days’ notice.
By his own admission, Felder hadn’t been in an MMA gym in months, as he had instead been training to compete in a triathlon. That didn’t stop him from trading blows with dos Anjos for 25 minutes, going the distance and giving the former champ a stiff test. MMA is still a sport where being a “warrior” earns you big brownie points – fans, and promoters, love fighters who are willing to scrap, and put it all on the line, anytime and anywhere. And there may be no finer example of what being a “warrior” means than what Paul Felder did in his final MMA bout.
Over the last year, Felder has proven that he still has what it takes to compete with the very best on any given night, even when he’s not fully committed to training. He could continue to fight for a few years yet, cashing in on his talents and maintaining a spot in the rankings. But Paul Felder has never been anything short of a fighter who leaves it all out there every time. What’s a paycheck worth when you don’t have that passion, that drive to dedicate 100 percent of yourself anymore?
There are few fighters on Earth who understand what it means to be a warrior more than Paul Felder. And when he didn’t feel it anymore, he walked away. In the end, he refused to let us down, not even once.
The Big Fight 