{"id":492705,"date":"2026-02-20T15:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492705\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T15:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:56:07","slug":"ufc-bantamweight-aj-cunningham-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492705\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Bantamweight AJ Cunningham Retires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/tag\/aj-cunningham\" class=\"tag-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AJ Cunningham<\/a>, a 31-year-old bantamweight who competed twice in the UFC, has announced his retirement from mixed martial arts.<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham revealed the decision in a vlog-style video recorded in his car, explaining that he ruptured a disc in his back that has not healed properly and that ongoing issues with the injury have led him to walk away from competition.<\/p>\n<p>The American ends his career with an overall record of 11 wins and 5 losses, including an 0-2 mark inside the Octagon after earning his opportunity with a victory on Dana White\u2019s Contender Series. His UFC run included a quick stoppage defeat to Jose Johnson in March 2024, part of a brief stint at the highest level that did not produce a win.<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham\u2019s retirement comes after a turbulent spell outside the cage as well. In October 2025, he faced widespread backlash for posting Nazi-themed propaganda on his Instagram account, drawing condemnation across social media and overshadowing his in-cage career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AJ Cunningham, a 31-year-old bantamweight who competed twice in the UFC, has announced his retirement from mixed martial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[248765,64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-492705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-aj-cunningham","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}