Niko Price is speaking up over the awkward double-retirement with Michael Chiesa at UFC Seattle that led to him being ushered out of the cage without even getting to say a few words on the mic.
Saturday night was set to be Chiesa’s night for a while. He was booked into a fight against Carlston Harris with the understanding that this would be the TUF winner’s retirement fight after 18 years of fighting,14 of those with the UFC. But Harris fell out two weeks before the event, and he was replaced with Niko Price. A few days before Seattle, Price made the decision to retire win or lose as well.
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Chiesa would end up submitting Price in 90 seconds. Following the win, Daniel Cormier interviewed Chiesa and then the production truck rolled into a emotional retirement video package for “Maverick.” When the video ended, Price was gone from the cage. He never got his moment on the mic to say so long.
In an interview with Inside Fighting, Price admitted he was disappointed with how things went.
“I talked to Mike in the back, we were all cool and everything,” Price said. “Even though I had to stand there and watch his whole thing and they’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to get mic time.’”
“I’m like, ‘Alright, cool.’ Then I’m like, ‘Why am I not getting mic time?’ Then, I was like, ‘Whatever, don’t worry. But can I leave? I don’t want to stay here no more.’ Then I told my coach because they didn’t even send off me off at all. They went to my gloves, and then they took a picture of him with my gloves. I was like, ‘Nooo, I wanted to do that picture with my gloves.’ He has his gloves on in the picture.”
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Even though his retirement moment was spoiled, Price was happy with how his career went.
“I was a champion in other organizations, I got to live the best of all the highlights,” he said. “I didn’t make millions and millions of dollars, but I was comfortable, I got to provide for my family, and I have enough money to jump into a new avenue after this, which is cool. And I can still speak, I can still think. I have great thought process. I’m not durrrr, I’m so happy for that.”
“When I was three I got kicked in the head by a horse,” he added. “So I wasn’t supposed to be doing no head trauma stuff. I played football from 9 to 18, went from football to rugby, then rugby to fighting. I’m just blessed to be able to say it out loud and coherently that I fought and did combat sports and I can speak straight still. And I remember what I did this morning.”
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Niko Price leaves with a 16-11 record, 8-11 in the UFC. While there were a lot of losses on his record in the latter half of his career, his record doesn’t capture how much entertainment his fights provided. Here’s hoping he enjoys a long post-fight career of not taking any more head trauma.
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