UFC 313 was packed with some unforeseen situations. The first round wheel kick knockout by Mauricio Ruffy, fallout of the fights pushing the event back by an hour, and now, Jalin Turner’s unexpected retirement. The entire fighting community was worried about ‘The Tarantula’ after he was forced to tap out of the bout against Ignacio Bahamondes at UFC 313. It was the first round when Bahamondes took control of the fight with a triangle choke. Needless to say, Turner was absolutely devastated by the outcome. 

Play-by-play commentator Jon Anik claimed that he heard Turner talking about his retirement. The words “I’m done,” were pretty prominent as per Anik. And soon, the famed MMA reporter, John Morgan, came in to confirm the news. Taking to X, Morgan wrote, “Jalin Turner tells me he’s made the decision to retire. Asked if he might want to take some time to reconsider, but he says he’s sure and has been battling with the decision since UFC 300. #UFC313.”

Well, the reason might be his recent defeats. Out of the last 5 fights in his record, ‘The Tarantula’ won only one bout against King Green. His last bout against Renato Moicano was an unfortunate loss as the Brazilian defeated him via ground and pound in the second round at UFC 300. The disappointing defeat must have made the 29-year-old lightweight contender cast a shadow of doubt on his abilities. And finally, after around 11 months of inactivity and a lot of thinking, he hung his gloves for good. 

On top of that, via MMA Today, Turner said, “I went through a lot of stuff after that [UFC] 300 loss. I just had to recuperate and I just had to grow and I just had to just find my fire, find my passion for the sport again. Just fall in love with it again… I just grew sick of everything and I had to get off social media, kind of just live life a little bit more and just train and just get better and just fall in love with everything again. I was just fed up with it. 300 really hurt my heart, like to lose on such a big card. Stuff like that, it’ll break you.”

But it didn’t feel like ‘The Tarantula’ planned it all from the beginning. In a conversation with the Ultimate Fighting Championship prior to UFC 313, Turner revealed that he was indeed working hard to get a win. However, fate seemed to have its own plans. Let’s see what Turner had to say. 

Jalin Turner did not want to feel the disappointment that he felt at UFC 300 at UFC 313

Turner is not really a bad grappler. All of his 14 wins in the professional MMA realm were finishes and 4 of them came via submissions. But he knew what was at stake at UFC 313. While he was pretty good on his feet, he knew that he had to polish his ground game to ensure a victory against Bahamondes. After all, ‘La Jaula’ has one of the most dangerous clinching abilities in the division. 

During a conversation with the UFC, Turner said, “Grappling was a personal journey. It has nothing to do with this matchup or anything like that — it was just me wanting to be a better martial artist. Taking into account how my fight at UFC 300 went, I felt like I needed to stay more disciplined and polished in my grappling. It was something I really needed to focus on and work on. That’s what I did the last 11 months.”

But despite all of his efforts, he wasn’t able to secure a win against the lightweight from Chile. And the disappointment was high enough to force him out of the fighting realm and hang his gloves for good. Nevertheless, the fighting community seemed to believe that ‘The Tarantula’ would return some day or the other. With the sliver of hope shimmering, all we can do is wait and watch the complete story unfold. 

What are your thoughts on Turner’s retirement? Do you think he should have simply changed his weight class? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.