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Sure, UFC’s Marion Reneau will retire eventually – but on her own terms and timeline
Filed under: News, UFC, Videos
ROTTERDAM – At Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 115 event, Marion Reneau will become the first 40-year-old woman to fight in the UFC.
Whenever a high-level athlete reaches this type of mark, a seemingly inevitable question follows: Is retirement looming? And Reneau, who’ll also be the oldest UFC fighter in action in the Netherlands on Saturday, doesn’t seem to have a problem getting those types of questions.
But it’s her prerogative to not have an answer to them, either.
“Forty is the new 20; let’s just roll with that,” Reneau told MMAjunkie with a laught. “I just feel that, when I’m ready, I’m going to call it quits. I don’t have a set date, a set time, a set number of fights. But, when I do, it will be on my terms.”
Reneau (7-3-1 MMA, 3-2-1 UFC) meets Talita de Oliveira (5-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) in a main-card bantamweight bout at Saturday’s event at Ahoy Rotterdam – all of which streams live on UFC Fight Pass. De Oliveira agreed to step in for former 145-pound champ Germaine de Randamie, who had to pull out in the last minute.
Reneau, who was gunning for ranked competition after a controversial draw with ex-title-challenger Bethe Correia, didn’t really get her wish in de Oliveira. But, for someone who was unsure whether she’d get a fight at all, this one will do just fine.
“At first I couldn’t believe (de Randamie had pulled out); it was kind of disbelief,” Reneau said. “It was one of those things, like, ‘OK, so what’s my next step?’ I did want a top-10 opponent. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to fight a top-10 opponent.
“But (that) doesn’t take away from the opponent I have now. She’s brand new to the UFC, and she wants to make a statement, so I’m not taking anything away from this opponent.”
Reneau, of course, has the experience over Brazil’s de Oliveira – who began her professional MMA road just in 2015. But riding a four-fight winning streak, de Oliveira brings in both a size advantage and jiu-jitsu chops that ensured all but one of her wins came via submission.
Still, Reneau is confident in how the night is going to pan out.
“I see it going down with my hand raised victorious,” Reneau said.
To hear from Reneau, check out the video above.
And for more on UFC Fight Night 115, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.
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