“I don’t believe that fighters are made. I think they’re born, and it’s kind of who you are. With me, I still have that competitive fire. It wasn’t a point of me being like, ‘I hate fighting. I don’t want fight.’ It was a point of me deciding I’m going to [retire] because I need to spend more time with my kids, but that doesn’t make that competitive fire go away… When you win, it’s just such a good feeling of achievement. It’s kind of unbelievable, and not only that, there’s fans there, thousands of people cheering for you, everybody watching. It’s about as good a feeling as it gets when you win. It’s about as bad a feeling you can have when you lose. It’s addictive. When you win, you want to always have that feeling… Maybe I’m hoping [the urge to fight] will just kind of slowly, day after day, maybe it will go away a little bit. I don’t know, but it’s not really happening. I go to an event and I’m like, ‘Man, this sucks.’ There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no anything for me to kind of look forward to in that aspect. It’s very tough. I’m trying to fulfill it with other things… It’s kind of like being addicted to a drug, I think, but it’s not a drug.”

Retired UFC fighter Chris Lytle on a recent edition of Sherdog.com’s “Beatdown” radio show talks about his life after cage fighting and the emotions he has sitting on the sidelines.

After his August victory over Dan Hardy, Lytle announced that he was leaving the sport of Mixed Martial Arts for good in order to spend time with his family. He put together a scene that included his children in the cage and thanked the fans watching at home and the fans in attendance for all the wonderful years.

After going on an impressive 5-1 run to close the chapter of his professional career, many thought he was just a few wins away from title contention. However his desire to be a good husband and father kept him from continuing on that path.

Many fighters go out on their shield while stacking up losses or poor performances until they have no other choice but to hang up their gloves. To go out like Lytle did, on the winning side of things, is how a good fighter should walk away but apparently that is easier said than done.

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