Stephen Thompson reveals one record he wants to beat before considering "the retirement thing" ahead of UFC 307
Stephen Thompson recently opened up about hanging his gloves up for good someday and outlined a unique goal he wants to achieve before that day comes. The UFC welterweight is widely considered among the flashiest strikers in the promotion and is known for his polite demeanor.
Thompson is booked to face Joaquin Buckley at UFC 307 this weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 41-year-old is coming off a second-round submission loss to Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 296 last December.
Ahead of his next outing, Thompson reflected upon his time in the UFC and revealed his goals as a fighter going forward. In a recent interview with Submission Radio, 'Wonderboy' stated that he wanted to become the oldest fighter to step inside the octagon and said:
"I always feel good, man... I feel like I can do this as long as my body will let me or when my Dad says I’m done... But the retirement thing hasn’t been on my mind, I literally want to beat the record of being the oldest guy in the UFC. I think it was [Randy] Couture; maybe at 45 or something, maybe he was the oldest... I think I’m the second oldest guy on the UFC roster."
Catch Stephen Thompson's comments below (24:02):
Stephen Thompson and his extraordinary UFC journey
Stephen Thompson would win that referenced UFC debut when he finished Dan Stittgen by way of a first-round head kick at UFC 143. While he would lose his sophomore contest in the company to Matt Brown via unanimous decision at UFC 145, he would rebound by putting together a seven-fight winning streak thereafter.
Some of the most notable names on Thompson's resume during this stretch included eventual UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker, former UFC middleweight title challenger Patrick Cote, former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks, and former UFC welterweight title challenger/ eventual Bellator welterweight champion Rory MacDonald.
He would get his chance to become a UFC champion against Tyron Woodley. This resulted in a tremendously exciting fight at UFC 205 that ended in a majority draw. The immediate rematch between the two would see Woodley emerge with the gold via majority decision at UFC 209 in a fight that many saw as far less exciting than their initial clash.
Wonderboy has not had another chance at the UFC belt since then but has faced an absolute who's who of the division since that March 2017 rematch with Woodley.
The South Carolina native went on to share the cage with Jorge Masvidal, Darren Till, Anthony Pettis, Vicente Luque, Geoff Neal, Gilbert Burns, current welterweight champion Belal Muhammad, Kevin Holland, and most recently, Shavkat Rakhmonov.