MIAMI – Former UFC title challenger Felicia Spencer isn’t a fan of being reminded that she’s retired from MMA.
“I don’t like to use the word retirement, but I announced that I was done fighting,” Spencer told MMA Junkie.
Spencer made the somewhat stunning announcement this past December – stunning because she was still at the top of her game. But don’t get it twisted: There’s finality to the decision, according to Spencer.
“I feel like it’s definite,” she said. “There’s always a number, but it’s not a number anyone’s gonna want to pay. For me, I feel like my reasoning for walking away when I did, it was not because I couldn’t compete anymore. It wasn’t because I was losing. It was for the reasons I felt in my heart that I wanted to stop when I did. And I think for that reason, I won’t feel the urge to have redemption.”
Spencer, who started fighting professionally in 2015, went 7-0 to open her career, which included winning the Invicta FC featherweight title before moving on to the UFC. There, she submitted fellow former Invicta FC champ Megan Anderson before going three rounds with Cris Cyborg and losing a unanimous decision in her native Canada at UFC 240.
Specner rebounded from that first career loss with a first-round TKO of Zarah Fairn Dos Santos. After that came a title shot against featherweight champion Amanda Nunes in the UFC 250 headliner, which Spencer lost by unanimous decision. A split decision loss to Norma Dumont followed before Spencer, in what would be her final fight, finished Leah Letson with punches in the third round this past November.
Three weeks later, Spencer announced she was done fighting, which the timing turned out to be part of her plan all along. Spencer, 31, said she always envisioned herself calling it quits around 30.
“I didn’t wanna ever be a fighter that hung out too long,” Spencer said. “And I always really took my mental health seriously as far as head trauma and that kind of thing. And I know I’ve been in some wars, and I won’t give up in the cage. To kind of avoid any possibility of that happening in the future, just decided to step away while I’m still myself, while I’m still here. … I just didn’t want to go too far and fighting too hard for too long.”
Spencer spent Friday evening calling the action at Eagle FC 44, an endeavor she was really excited about taking. It’s just part of her “next chapter,” which doesn’t have her second-guessing her decision.
“I feel like maybe it was easier (to retire), because I feel like I have a next chapter,” Spencer said. “I always put my mind to something and gone as far as I could. Same thing with fighting. I always trained martial arts and everything, and I’ll still continue to train. When I decided that I would try to go as far as I could in fighting, I did that. I put my nose to the ground and worked at it. I wasn’t afraid of what followed with not really knowing where I’m gonna be.
“I still don’t know where I’ll be in two months, because I might be at another Eagle FC show, or I might be going on to something else because maybe it’s just not my thing. I’m just excited to dive into my next thing.”