The Doggy Bag: The Unintended Consequences Edition

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Do you actually believe Jens Pulver when he says that he will retire in another fight or two? He admitted he still has bills to pay. As a lifelong "Lil' Evil" fan, I want to believe he will hang them up, but he reminds me of so many fighters who go out there and keep getting smacked around after their primes. I've heard too many of them talk about retirement and go back on it to believe them at this point. -- Matt from Seattle

TJ De Santis, Sherdog Radio Network program director: Prognosticating when or if a fighter should retire is always a tricky subject. If I say, “Pulver should retire, hands down,” I get emails asking, "Who are you to say that?" People like to think that if you're not a doctor, trainer or fighter you have no right to say that any athlete should stop what he or she is doing.

However, as a fan and somebody that covers this sport for a living, I can say that Pulver is hurting his legacy. I think something similar is echoed by nearly every MMA enthusiast that I talk to about Pulver's current situation. I am a big Pulver fan; I still remember returning from an event one time and putting his documentary “Driven” on my laptop. The film chronicles Pulver's struggles leading up to his WEC fight with Javier Vazquez. I will never forget being 40,000 feet high and fighting the urge to start crying at what I saw.

"Lil’ Evil" is someone to be respected in this sport. He has always been outspoken when it comes to lighter weight fighters and was one of the first fighters to stand up for what he believed in despite what the UFC felt. Pulver's fight with Stephen Palling is also one of my favorite fights of all time. By now, that should all be set in history, like Pulver’s fight career. Yet, it’s not.

Pulver fought at a time when MMA fighters were barely seen on television. Now we have fighters signing huge endorsement deals with Nike, Gatorade and so on. Pulver really never got to milk the cash cow. Is that fair? No, but that's life. He was cheated by circumstance and by time.

Pulver states that he needs to pay bills and that he is doing it the only way he knows how. He can still get fights because of his past; the title of “former UFC champion” is a great sell. However, how long can you continue to fight at a .500-or-below clip and still have people care? I am sure there are a ton of people that consider themselves hardcore fans that really have no idea that Pulver still competes. Most others just feel sad that it’s still going on.

Following the loss to Vazquez, Pulver said his goodbyes in the WEC cage. It seemed that his career was at completion and he would ride off in to the sunset with a certain class. I looked forward to him getting the call to do color commentary and still seeing him as a personality in the sport. For whatever reason, that didn't happen.

Advocates of a Pulver retirement sometimes bring up the medical argument with him. Some worry about the amount of punishment that he has taken over his career. I mentioned the Paling fight; the amount of trauma those men dished out was insane. Pulver once told me that during that fight there were times he didn't know if he was standing or sitting. "Bozo" even needed surgery on his face following the contest. I can't say for a fact that Pulver is destroying his body, but he is destroying his legacy and no one wants to watch that from a man whose career was defined by his pride.