Almost a decade has passed since Rich Franklin announced his retirement from MMA. A one-time high-school math teacher and former UFC middleweight champion, Franklin made his decision one year after joining Singapore-based ONE Championship as an executive for the then-fledgling combat sports promotion in 2014. In the time since, Franklin has stayed true to his word to not fight again.
With MMA’s latest startup promotion, the Global Fight League, snapping up a wide array of MMA veterans and UFC legends, Franklin, 50, was asked Wednesday on “The Ariel Helwani Show” whether Darren Owen’s team had contacted him. Considering how many notable former UFC champs are under the GFL umbrella, “Ace” would seemingly make an easy target for the roster. Franklin has yet to receive any offers, but if he does, he admitted they’d be considered, whether in GFL or elsewhere.
“I’m 50, and that window, if I was interested, that window is closing pretty quickly,” Franklin acknowledged. “I could be, under the right circumstances, the right kind of money, the right kind of opponent — I could be definitely talked into a match for the right decimal place as well. But I’m not hungry like I was when I’m 25. I could probably get my body through another camp or two, but that grind when you’re 25, 30 years old, you don’t have it at this age like you did then. But it would be fun. The camaraderie of being in a camp and focusing on that target or that goal, I enjoy doing that.
“That approach that I took to fighting is the same kind of approach that I take to my job too, whether I’m commentating or if I’m going to speak to a commission. If I go into a commission meeting and they’re not receptive to my talk, then I go out, and I’m like, ‘Man, it’s like losing a fight. What did I do wrong? Let me go analyze the tape.’ I have that kind of mindset, so it’s still applicable to a fight career.”
Franklin rose to fame throughout the 2000s thanks to his story as a math teacher and talent as a dangerous knockout artist. Ultimately, his skill set was more than enough to lead to a UFC title when he defeated Evan Tanner via fourth-round knockout in June 2005.
The legendary middleweight was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2019, seven years after his final fight against Cung Le at UFC Macau. Franklin suffered a first-round knockout in that fight and quietly faded into retirement afterward, starting with his role in ONE. He admits the last time he attended a UFC event was around that time, but it’s not because of a negative relationship with the company.
“In 2023, I made 11 trips to Southeast Asia in 10 months. That’s a 34-hour trek each way,” Franklin said. “So essentially a day and a half of travel. When you do that, you’re flip-flopping your entire body, then you come back and you unflip-flop it. When you do that 11 times in 10 months, it will wear on you, so your desire to travel and say, ‘Yeah, I’d love to get on a plane and go do this thing,’ really begins to diminish. Between that and being at events for ONE Championship, that’s the primary reason why.
“I have a good relationship with UFC. [UFC CEO] Dana [White] and I have talked several times since I’ve retired, and obviously they inducted me in the Hall of Fame as well.
“There was a time when I was headed out to Las Vegas for some other business, and I reached out to Dana and said, ‘Hey, you got time for lunch?’ He happened to be out of town, so we didn’t. Nonetheless, no bad blood or anything like that,” he concluded.
Franklin will forever hold his place as one of the best to ever compete at 185 pounds. He was a pioneer who set early records in the UFC. With two successful title defenses and multiple bonuses throughout his UFC career, Franklin isn’t overly concerned with the legacy he may have left or whether the newest generations understand his contributions to the game.
“People can forget that my impact was there and whatever that impact is,” Franklin said. “If I have an impact on your life personally because I’m a good human being or the impact that I had on the middleweight division for a sport like MMA, it’ll be there forever, and whether or not people mentioned my name, I’ll know what I did. But when I’m dead and gone, these things that happened here, I’m not even going to care about them because I’m no longer here. I’m gonna be chilling in Heaven watching it.”
