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Chan Sung Jung, better known to many as The Korean Zombie, retired from professional MMA competition earlier this year after a loss to former UFC Featherweight Champion Max Holloway.
Jung says one of the biggest reasons he retired from professional MMA competition is that he doesn’t have the chin to fight anymore.
“The funny thing about this fight is I remember every single second of the fight,” Zombie said recently on The MMA Hour. “From the moment I got dropped, every single punch I threw, every single punch that hit me. In the second round when I got dropped, I saw the punch coming, I thought I dodged it, but I was dropped. I was like, ‘What hit me?’ In the first round I was wobbled a little bit and in the third round everybody saw I got knocked down.
“After experiencing these moments, I felt that I don’t have that chin anymore. I’ve been having brain damage over the years, so I don’t have that chin anymore. I’m not going to say any names but there are fighter who, when they were young, used to have a really good chin, but then as they get older they get brain damage, their chin gets weaker, and they get frequently dropped. If the fighter fails to acknowledge the fact that they got old and their chin got weaker, the end isn’t as lovely. I didn’t want to become that fighter, so I decided to retire at that moment.”
A retired Zombie never captured the UFC Featherweight Title, despite two attempts at the gold, but he did leave the sport with a record of 17-8-0.
One thing Jung does say is that he is truly grateful for the great MMA career that he did have.
“Before I put the gloves down, I didn’t really feel anything, but after I put the gloves down on the canvas and bowed down right besides the gloves, it was an emotion that I’ve never felt before,” Zombie said. “Being at the end of a chapter in your life is something that’s very unexplainable. At the same time, I felt gratitude towards the UFC and the UFC gloves because it gave me one heck of a life, so that’s what I was feeling.”
