Paige VanZant says she considered retirement after leaving the ring last night in Tampa.
VanZant came up short via judges decision in her Bare Knuckle FC debut after finding little success against opponent Britain Hart. According to VanZant, it was a defeat that made her immediately think about leaving the world of combat sports behind her. Instead, as she described on her social media on Saturday morning, she took her momentary self-doubt as motivation to continue on and fight again.
“The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear our defeat without losing heart,” VanZant wrote. “Last night I told my husband I didn’t want to fight any more. But as soon as the words left my lips I knew that wasn’t true. I’m a fighter. This is what I live for. Losers quit when they fail, winners fail until they succeed. That fight last night was a good learning experience for me. The timing and distance took a little bit to figure out. But I felt my last round was my best round and I’m going to build off of that! I’m thankful to fight for the best team in the world and we are going to go back and fix our mistakes. Thank you to Britain for competing last night and congrats on victory! I’m also confident we will cross paths again.”
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