Soszynski addresses retirement comment
Posted December 28, 2011 3:20 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Apparently, the news of Krzysztof (The Polish Experiment) Soszynski’s retirement was premature. Even if it was the Canadian himself who “announced” it.
The UFC light-heavyweight appeared in a video blog posted by the organization’s president Dana White following a 35-second knockout loss to Igor Pokrajac at UFC 140. In it, he said it was his “last MMA fight” while he was being checked out by doctors backstage at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
“I am done,” said Soszynski as he looked at the camera. “It’s a sh—- way to go out though.”
Trouble is, the 34-year-old has no recollection of saying any of it.
After the video was posted this past Monday night, there were naturally a lot questions for Soszynski, who had not made a formal announcement of any kind since his disappointing defeat on Dec. 10. Reached for comment by MMAjunkie.com, Soszynski, who lay unresponsive for some time after he was knocked out by his Croatian opponent, admitted that everything was a haze for a couple minutes from that moment .
“The truth is, I don’t remember (saying it was my last MMA fight),” Soszynski told the website. “The last thing I remember before the knockout was going into the cage, setting up across from Igor, and then shaking hands. The next thing I remember is I’m woken up in the back, fully dressed, and (UFC matchmaker) Joe Silva came up to me, sort of gave me a hug and told me to keep my head up.”
Now nearly three weeks since the loss, the Winnipeg fighter who now trains out of Reign Training Center in Temecula, Calif., says he wants to enter the cage at least once more, provided he gets clearance from the doctors. He said he’s had a lot of injuries and been fighting at much less than 100 per cent since a three-round battle against Stephan Bonnar at UFC 110 in Australian in February 2010. He said his body just hasn’t been the same, and it’s for that reason — not the aversion to getting knocked out — that he’s had retirement on his mind.
Later in the video, Soszynski is seen hugging Pokrajac and jokingly asking if he’ll split his expected “Knockout of the Night bonus” with him. (That award ultimately went to Chan Sung Jung, for his UFC record-tying, seven-second TKO of Mark Hominick, who also appears in the video blog.)
Soszynski doesn’t remember that exchange either.
“I started laughing at it,” said Soszynski, who was as surprised as anyone when he saw himself in the video blog. “But I had wondered for the last two weeks if Igor came up to me and said anything. And we did talk, so that was pretty cool.”
