Jake Ellenberger Announces His Retirement from Mixed Martial Arts
Jake Ellenberger laid his gloves down in the Octagon on Saturday night and announced his retirement from mixed martial arts.
The 33-year old Nebraska native made the decision after suffering a knockout loss to Bryan Barberena in front of his home state crowd.
The loss dropped Ellenberger to 1-6 in his past seven fights with five of those defeats coming by way of knockout or TKO.
“There’s no better place for me to set the gloves down and say it’s time to move on than the same place it started, here home in Nebraska with my family, my friends, everybody, I love you,” Ellenberger said after the fight.
46 pro fights. 21 inside the Octagon.
Thank you for an incredible career, @EllenbergerMMA. #UFCLincoln pic.twitter.com/siowfyFBKu
— UFC (@ufc) August 26, 2018
A veteran with nearly 50 fights on his resume, Ellenberger has always been considered one of the toughest outs in the entire welterweight division.
His career started long before he got to the UFC with Ellenberger competing in numerous regional promotions as well as a long tenure as part of the International Fight League.
When he finally did get the call to join the UFC, Ellenberger already had an incredibly impressive record and he built on that resume while competing inside the Octagon for the past nine years.
Ellenberger came close to title contention on a couple of different occasions but he never ended up fighting for gold in the UFC.
Still, Ellenberger faced the best of the best throughout his career with a multitude of top 10 fighters, champions and former champions making up his resume.
Ellenberger retires with a 31-15 record overall including a 10-11 mark in the UFC.
