Cyrille Diabate to retire following UFC Fight Night 37 bout with Latifi
LONDON – After more than 20 years in combat sports, Cyrille Diabate believes it’s time to call it quits.
The 40-year-old fighter, from France, on Thursday told MMAjunkie that his fight against Ilir Latifi at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 37 event in London will be his last.
Diabate (19-9-1 MMA, 4-3 UFC) and Ilir Latifi (7-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC) close out the preliminary card of the show, which takes place at O2 Arena in London and streams on UFC Fight Pass.
Diabate’s retirement announcement is far from typical. Sure, at 40, perhaps the thought of him retiring from fighting shouldn’t come as much surprise. But “The Snake,†one of the sport’s elite kickboxing and muay Thai practitioners, said he nearly just threw in the hat a year ago – only to work his way back for one more fight.
At UFC on FUEL TV 7 in February 2013, also in London, Diabate suffered a brutal calf tear and the fight was stopped after the first round against Jimi Manuwa, who coincidentally headlines the card on Saturday. Diabate said it was the most painful fighting experience he’s ever had, and the resulting rehab had him shelved from true fight training for eight months.
“At one point, just after the fight, I called it quits in my mind,†Diabate told MMAjunkie. “I gave up. I’ve been doing this 20-plus years, and it’s just frustrating to go through a camp of two and a half months, three months, and then to fight like that with that injury. Plus, the pain was just unbearable.â€
But the same thing that’s kept Diabate going for 15 years in MMA, and even longer as a kickboxer, is what prevented him from letting the calf injury be the end of his career.
“Pride definitely made me go back to fighting,†he said. “I thought to myself, ‘I can’t go out like that. This can’t be the end of my career.’ It was definitely motivation to continue and end up with a big performance.â€
So rather than throwing in the towel, which would have been understandable and forgivable, given the injury, he instead spent more than a year combined between recovery, rehabilitation and his full camp for Latifi – all just so he hopefully can end things on a much different note than being helped out of the octagon.
“I had nearly a month without being able to put my foot on the floor,†he said. “Then five months of rehab with a top-notch sports and medical facility in France. Eight months after the injury, I was able to go back to the gym. It was definitely very hard on the mind. It was a very bad experience as an athlete, just being handicapped like that. You’ve got to keep your mind focused on your goals and grit your teeth and go through it.â€
Diabate had a modest two-fight winning streak before his injury against Manuwa and had won three of four. In fact, since 2005, his losses are to Mauricio Rua, Alexander Gustafsson, Anthony Perosh and Manuwa, the latter, of course, coming under extenuating circumstances.
He’s fought around the world thanks to MMA being banned in his home country, but it was in the UFC he got his long-awaited top-tier recognition.
But even that, at the end of the day, starts to wear off.
“The motivation when you’re 40 years old is your biggest enemy,†Diabate said. “You’ve got to keep something in your mind that motivates you. For this fight, the motivation was not stopping with that kind of performance and that kind of injury. It was easy for me to get in the gym every day and work my ass off.
“But after this fight, I don’t think anything is going to be motivating me enough to make those sacrifices and be in the gym daily.â€
Oddsmakers have installed Diabate and Latifi as dead even in the fight. But regardless of what happens, Diabate believes he’s moving on.
He runs his own fight team in France, and as a trainer and coach, he’ll remain involved in the sport. But he sounds every bit a man resolute in his decision to put in a year’s worth of work for what he hopes is one final grand payoff into the sunset.
“Fighting’s been part of my life for the last 22 years, and I’ve loved every bit of it. But after a while, you’ve got to move on to different things.â€
