Cub Swanson not fully committing to retiring after UFC Tampa but 'I think I can be done right now'

Cub Swanson is truly one of a kind.

The 44-fight career of California's "Killer Cub" has been loaded with thrills and memorable moments. Swanson produced yet another wild Fight of the Night against Billy Quarantillo this past Saturday at UFC Tampa. Despite his veteran status and seasoned age, the 41-year-old Swanson delivered as he historically always has, knocking out Quarantillo in Round 3.

While he hasn't made an official decision, that performance could be the WEC OG's swan song.

"I'm very content on where I stand right now," Swanson said on "The Ariel Helwani Show." "We'll see if I get excited about something, but for the most part, the way I'm feeling right now, I'm pretty happy and I think I can be done right now.

"Everybody wants me to say what it is [about retirement], and that's just not it. I really need to think about it because I don't want to be a guy that's unretiring, retiring. It's just not fair to all the people around me. It's not fair to anybody, so I want to make sure I take the time and make the right decisions. I still need to get my hand looked at, I need to get my eyes looked at a little bit, so there's just things I gotta do.

"If there's a fight that really excites me, maybe that will really motivate me, but as of right now, I just don't see myself fighting again," he concluded.

Swanson has done about as much as any fighter could hope for without challenging for a world title. From the early days fighting inside WEC's famous blue cage, Swanson got off to the races, taking on MMA legends like Jose Aldo and Jens Pulver.

Although the perennial featherweight contender never had an opportunity to compete for the big one, he has no regrets about how he handled his entertaining career.

"When I got into the sport, I was upset at myself for never knowing it was there, and I got into it in 2003, going like, 'How have I never heard of this before?'" Swanson recalled. "So I started going back and looking at the first UFCs and looking at the history of jiu-jitsu, how it started, and just martial arts in general. And I got to learn all the old stuff. I knew about all these things, like the history of MMA, I feel like I know a decent amount about. I've lived through a decent chunk of it now, and so when people are like, 'Who's that guy?' Oh, you don't know who it is? What're you doing?

"It does irritate me because I feel like it's important to know the history and understand where it came from and just see the evolution of the sport. It's been wild to be a part of, it's been wild to watch. I encourage people to kind of go back and learn."

Few fighters achieve the status of Hall of Famer before their career is over. Swanson joined that rarified air thanks to his instant classic showdown with South Korea's Doo Ho Choi at UFC 206 in 2016. The fight was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame fight wing in 2022.

Looking back through Swanson's catalog of certified banger brawls, that win over Choi is an easy selection to point out as the No. 1 highlight. However, a more recent performance over a fellow veteran also stands out for the knockout artist.

"If they were just only going to watch one fight, I would say that's a great one," Swanson said of his Choi win. "I [also] really liked the finish I had with [Darren] Elkins [from 2021] because I was playing with some stuff on that one about standing square and switching stances."

Outside of a recent cameo at bantamweight in 2022, the featherweight division has been Swanson's home since 2006. The past three fights post-bantamweight have been a return to form for Swanson, as he's won two of those three.

A unanimous decision win over Canada's Hakeem Dawodu kicked off that stretch before Swanson lost a highly competitive split decision to Andre Fili at UFC 303 this past June. The MMA community largely felt Swanson should've gotten his hand raised in that one.

As it turns out, though, fans of Swanson were lucky the result was what it was. Had the longtime veteran been rewarded the nod, he may not have put on a show in Tampa this past Saturday.

"If I would have won the Fili fight, I think I would have laid down my gloves right there," Swanson said. "But that didn't happen, and that kind of just messed me up, you know? I felt empty. It was a weird feeling. I was pissed and I had to go back and think about it and I was like, 'Alright, I'm jumping right back in there.' So that's what happened.

"I woke up that morning, I was like, 'Man, this is International Fight Week, I'm on the main card, it's going to be huge. What a night.' If I got out there and put on a show, then maybe I'll call it. If I get beat up, then I probably shouldn't be fighting. I go out there, I have a great fight then everybody's like, 'Man, I thought you won. You looked great.'"