K.J. Noons Thinking About His Future, but Not Considering Quitting

By Michael David Smith

There was some talk before K.J. Noons fought Billy Evangelista on Saturday night that he might be contemplating quitting MMA. But with his victory over Evangelista in hand, Noons said people misunderstood his comments about retiring.

Noons said on The MMA Hour that he is thinking about retirement -- but only in the sense that he has to be smart enough to know that he won't make enough money in MMA to live on for the rest of his life, and that future planning is important. That doesn't mean he's currently considering quitting MMA.

"I love my job, fighting. But there is a life after fighting. I'm still young, I still want to fight, don't get me wrong on that," Noons said. "There's a life after fighting. It just made me think when I got married -- it's hard to make a living on fighting, and some guys in their young 30s, their knees are busted up, they have all these surgeries, they've got bulging discs, they've had all these injuries and they can't even do normal stuff in their mid-30s. That's all I was thinking of, I need to build something because I can't retire off MMA purses, at least not the purses I make."