Two years later, he walked away from boxing with a 77-10-4 record following a third defeat in a row.<\/p>\n
The last win Butterbean<\/a> \u2013 real name Eric Esch \u2013 ever recorded saw him claim an MMA super heavyweight title. <\/p>\n Butterbean squared off against Dean Storey for the Elite-1 Super Heavyweight Championship in May 2011. <\/p>\n Storey had an 8-16-2 boxing record before taking on the 390lb American knockout artist in his first and last MMA fight. <\/p>\n The first round was a complete mess, with a ton of clinching and not a lot of strikes landing cleanly. <\/p>\n Things changed at the start of round two as Butterbean came flying at his opponent, throwing big shots. <\/p>\n In the end, it was a short left hook that caught Storey on the chin to knock him down to the canvas. <\/p>\n Butterbean tried to follow him to the floor to land more punches, but the referee immediately waved off the bout, giving him what proved to be the final win of his \u2018300-fight\u2019 career<\/a>. <\/p>\n Butterbean\u2019s 2025 comeback <\/p>\n Butterbean was confined to a wheelchair for several years<\/a> after ballooning up to 500lbs in retirement. <\/p>\n Now, he\u2019s lost 220lbs and is ready to make a shock return to the ring at 59 years old. <\/p>\n \u201cI wanna do one more fight to prove to people that no matter how down you get, if you believe in yourself like I believe in myself, you can accomplish anything,\u201d Butterbean told Bloody Elbow in July.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanna do it this year. Most definitely this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Jake Paul<\/a> is at the top of Butterbean\u2019s hit list, but he is also keen on a fight with Brock Lesnar<\/a>.<\/p>\n It seems unlikely either of them will agree to face Esch, as they have ignored his call-outs.<\/p>\n Still, Butterbean will complete his remarkable turnaround by fighting someone in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Butterbean\u2019s iconic combat sports career ended with five consecutive defeats in boxing and MMA. The prolific puncher quit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,14184,716,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-80419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-butterbean","10":"tag-mma","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Eric](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755702968_448_GettyImages-1128022173-1024x652.jpg\")
Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS\/AFP via Getty ImagesButterbean\u2019s final win <\/p>\n