Former UFC heavyweight title challenger Jeff Monson has finally hung up his gloves after over 100 fights across a nearly 30-year career.
The 54-year-old has had an unbelievable run with 93 professional MMA bouts since 1997 and countless other fights in other disciplines. He most famously fought for heavyweight gold against Tim Sylvia at UFC 65, going all five rounds in a tough title effort.
Nowadays the Minnesota native has relocated to Russia where he re-emerged following the pandemic to compete in a number of different sports. But now, as he approaches the midway point of his fifties he has decided to hang up the gloves for good.
Jeff Monson retires from MMA at the age of 54
After almost three decades, renowned grappler and MMA veteran Jeff Monson decided to hang up his gloves after competing on a regional Russian show. He fought at the Yuri Gagarin Sports Palace in Yevpatoria City to launch the Black Sea Cup, according to Russian media.
His opponent for the night was bare knuckle boxer and 0-2 MMA fighter Maxim Shcherbakov. The Russian is something of a veteran in his own right at the age of 35, but was still nearly 20 years Monson’s junior as they battled it out in a ring.
The fight looked to be a scrappy affair from footage available online, and exact rules are unclear. Monson managed to get a number of takedowns and control position in a number of highlights, but the fight was ultimately ruled a draw.
After the event, the American was presented with a belt by the World Total Kombat Federation as he gave a post-fight interview in seemingly perfect Russian without a hint of English.
Jeff Monson had bizarre journeyman career
Monson’s run took him all over the world and saw him face some of the best in the world. He had a middling early career travelling around America picking up almost as many losses as wins, before heading on a monster 16-fight winning streak that led him to a UFC title shot.
He was defeated over five rounds by Tim Sylvia in a fight that he later claimed ‘haunted’ him, but the big fights weren’t over yet. He headed back to the regional scene and defeated Roy Nelson before getting back to the big show on Strike Force, where he ran into a young Daniel Cormier in June of 2011.
Just a few months after that defeat by the undefeated Olympian, he found himself in Moscow taking on one of the sport’s all-time greats. He took Fedor Emelianenko the distance but lost that one as well, before embarking on another good decade and a half of fighting.
He has since controversially moved to Russia, where he is involved in politics. He surrendered his US passport in 2023 and began the process of renouncing his American citizenship.