It’s been three years since Luke Rockhold last fought in MMA, but it’s possible that he will never compete again under these rules.
The former UFC middleweight champion found other opportunities where he didn’t need to do MMA anymore as a boxing match was booked with UFC veteran Darren at British Misfit Boxing 22 on August 30th. Since leaving the UFC, Rockhold competed in a nude knuckle fight, an experience he hasn’t enjoyed, and a karate battle with Joe Schilling before booking his boxing debut.
He’ll never say that, but I don’t think Rockhold needs to go back to MMA unless there’s an offer too good to reject it at the table.
“I don’t have to do anything,” Rockhold told MMA Fighting. “I’m going well. I have a lot of good investments. I have money. I’m not rich, so I’m rich and dying. That’s life. Games are games. But I love fighting. We all know people like the table.
“Why is f*ck going back to MMA to pass these big fights to win this? There must be a big opportunity and a big reason. It needs to have a meaning in the title, and a lot of money.”
Before the boxing match until together in August, Rockhold was one of the numerous UFC veterans who were first signed to compete in the Global Fight League, a promotion built around a team concept with dozens of famous signatures after launch. GFL planned two event debuts for two nights in May, but both cards have been cancelled and the organization has almost disappeared without holding one event.
Neither of them were shocks to Rockhold, who signed with the GFL and booked a fight against old rival Chris Weidman before the promotion was effectively pissed off. Rockhold says he opened his eyes wide and signed the deal, but appreciated that GFL still pays him a scholarship even though he never actually fought there.
“I was being paid,” Rockhold said. “I got a lovely salary every month. I knew. This didn’t really happen because my management team was talking.
“You’re talking about seven figures of pay for someone who’s never been a UFC champion. Multiples. It’s not a sustainable business. You can’t maintain it. I trained it and got paid and used it as a motivation to maintain shape for these opportunities.
According to Rockhold, all his GFL salaries were cleared, so even if the organization constantly suspected he would go down from the ground, he had no complaints in the department.
As such, he never appeared in much less promotional material, the “GFL Draft,” which placed all the fighters on various teams around the world.
“I didn’t have a single conversation with a manager who wasn’t skeptical,” Rockhold said. “Enjoy the money, do this, do it. I didn’t even want to do an interview because I knew it was bullshit.
“They had that big launch in the draft, they took me there. I wasn’t this. People were hopeful. People saw these big, big pay.
GFL has come and go without hosting one event so far, but Rockhold knows that it needs more opportunities, like how the Fighters have spent most of his career competing in StrikeForce.
That said, the 40-year-old veteran has no illusions about the challenges that come with entering the fighting business and actually maintaining long-term success.
“It’s certainly a tough business,” Rockhold said. “And certainly more opportunities are always good. GFL, you need more people who have your shit together. You’re not too ambitious. You can’t come out of the gates throwing money like that when the market doesn’t work.”
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