Former WEC light heavyweight champion Brian Stann announced that he’s hanging up the gloves on a special edition of Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour Thursday morning.
“The All-American” said he felt it was time to put a lifetime of living dangerously behind him with his third daughter on the way this fall.
"If you look at my life, I've been getting hit in the head since I was in second grade playing football," Stann told Helwani over the phone. "I'm now 32 years old. That's a long time, and there's only so long that I can roll those dice and be successful. For me, the risk is not worth it.”
"I'm very, very lucky to have other options. I've maintained a fulltime job the entire time I was a fighter just because things like this could happen. You never know how successful you can be fighting. I've got some other options and I think it's time I focus more on them. Dana (White) has been very supportive.
Stann has been working as a UFC analyst for FUEL TV for several months now and on Wednesday it was reported that FOX Sports South has hired him to call ACC college football games.
Stann won all of his first six professional fights via first round knockout, culminating in capturing the WEC’s 205-pound title.
After getting finished twice under the UFC banner, he began training with Greg Jackson’s MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico and went on to win five of his next six fights.
Stann looked like a dark horse title contender after dropping down to middleweight and winning three straight between August 2010 and May 2011, but was stopped in his tracks by perennial contender Chael Sonnen at UFC 136 in October 2011.
Stann went just 1-2 in his final three fights, noting that his knockout loss to Wanderlei Silva (a light heavyweight bout) at UFC on FUEL 8 in March was what made him decide it was time to call it a career.
He explained that given the time and effort he spent in that fight’s training camp, along with the sacrifices he made being away from his family, Stann believes the fact he came up short against Silva shows he is no longer at his best.
The Silver Star recipient in the US Marine Corps retires with a 12-6 record overall, going 4-2 at middleweight and entering the division’s top 10 for a brief period of time at the height of his UFC run.