{"id":25253,"date":"2026-08-09T19:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T19:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/?p=25253"},"modified":"2026-08-09T19:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T19:23:23","slug":"darren-elkins-feels-relief-after-retirement-during-ufc-vegas-120-this-is-a-young-mans-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/?p=25253","title":{"rendered":"Darren Elkins feels &#8216;relief&#8217; after retirement during UFC Vegas 120: &#8220;This is a young man&#8217;s game&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><span class=\"exactmetrics-inline-popular-posts-label\">Trending:<\/span><span class=\"exactmetrics-inline-popular-posts-border\"\/><span class=\"exactmetrics-inline-popular-posts-border-2\"\/>Alex Pereira won\u2019t wait on Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane before his next fight: \u201cI want to fight for the belt\u201d<span class=\"photo-credit\">Zuffa LLC<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Darren Elkins said goodbye to pro MMA competition during UFC Vegas 120, and he is relieved.<\/p>\n<p>The retirement fight this past Saturday inside the Meta Apex didn\u2019t last long. Yadier del Valle struck early and his aggression paid off with a first-round TKO in 35 seconds. During the post-fight press conference, \u201cThe Damage\u201d admitted that he feels he held onto his prizefighting run longer than it needed to go (h\/t MMAMania.com).<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI\u2019m feeling a little bit of relief,\u201d Elkins said. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the next chapter of my life. This is a young man\u2019s game. I knew that. I stuck around for probably a little bit longer than I should\u2019ve, but I loved it so much. I was like, \u2018We\u2019ll do a little bit more.\u2019 So do I regret it? No. Should I probably [have] retired? Probably a little bit sooner. Maybe after [the] Daniel Pineda one would\u2019ve been kinda cool, but it I got greedy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Elkins also shared his gratitude for the opportunities he received under the UFC banner, and he took pride in never rocking the boat with the higherups.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThose guys, I\u2019ve always got along with everybody at the UFC. I\u2019m a guy, they know I\u2019m gonna show up. I\u2019m gonna clock in. I\u2019m gonna give everything I have. I\u2019m gonna make weight. I\u2019m gonna be on time. I\u2019m not gonna complain. I never complained.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Elkins suffered back-to-back first-round losses to end his 42-fight career. Throughout his run, Elkins faced some notable names, such as reigning UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski, Chad Mendes, and Jeremy Stephens.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most memorable moment in Elkins\u2019 career occurred at UFC 209 back in 2017. \u201cThe Damage\u201d scored a stunning come-from-behind victory over Mirsad Bekti\u0107, who was undefeated going into the bout. Elkins\u2019 memorable effort earned him a \u201cPerformance of the Night\u201d bonus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Share your thoughts on Darren Elkins\u2019 retirement below.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-1 mt-0 os-source\">This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/darren-elkins\/darren-elkins-feels-relief-after-retirement-during-ufc-vegas-120-this-is-a-young-mans-game\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=darren-elkins-feels-relief-after-retirement-during-ufc-vegas-120-this-is-a-young-mans-game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trending:Alex Pereira won\u2019t wait on Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane before his next fight: \u201cI want to fight for the belt\u201dZuffa LLC Darren Elkins said goodbye to pro MMA competition during UFC Vegas 120, and he is relieved. The retirement fight this past Saturday inside the Meta Apex didn\u2019t last long. Yadier del Valle struck<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[7030,11204,1908,771,10752,11697,86,42,269,1930],"class_list":["post-25253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-darren","tag-elkins","tag-feels","tag-game","tag-mans","tag-relief","tag-retirement","tag-ufc","tag-vegas","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}