{"id":103801,"date":"2026-04-11T02:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T05:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/mailbag-how-will-the-mma-world-remember-cub-swanson-after-ufc-327\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T02:45:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T05:45:04","slug":"mailbag-how-will-the-mma-world-remember-cub-swanson-after-ufc-327","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/mailbag-how-will-the-mma-world-remember-cub-swanson-after-ufc-327\/","title":{"rendered":"Mailbag: How will the MMA world remember Cub Swanson after UFC 327?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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What was the greatest moment of Cub Swanson\u2019s long MMA career, and what will he be remembered for most fondly after his retirement fight at UFC 327? Plus, what can the struggle to get a Conor McGregor fight across the finish line tell us about the UFC\u2019s current financial incentives?<\/p>\n

All that and more in this week\u2019s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA<\/a> on X or @Ben_Fowlkes<\/a> on Threads.<\/p>\n

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@nickj812: What’s your favourite Cub story (& fight)?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Realised writing this Choi Do Ho was 10 years ago. He wasn’t supposed to win, but we got 5 friggin rounds of full on heart & damage. Choi was arguably never the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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& Cub’s STILL fighting….. OMG<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cub Swanson has a lot of \u201cFight of the Night\u201d performances to choose from, but that win over Choi Doo-Ho was also the best fight of the whole year back in 2016. Which is, my god, 10 whole years ago. Swanson seemed like a grizzled veteran of this game even then. Now he\u2019s got over two decades of professional MMA experience, which means he\u2019s been in the cage for essentially the entire modern evolution of the sport. Let that sink in, as the kids say.<\/p>\n

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As for my favorite Cub story, I did a feature on him last year that tried to tell the story of his long and memorable career through the injuries he picked up along the way<\/a>. One of the things we talked a lot about were his experiences recovering from broken jaws, which many fighters will tell you is one of the most psychologically taxing injuries to deal with. Swanson found he couldn\u2019t take the pain medication because it made him nauseous. And feeling nauseous is a potentially serious problem when your jaw is wired shut. If you vomit, you could choke on it. Swanson said his doctor even told him to carry pliers with him at all times, just in case. (He never did.)<\/p>\n

But the worst part, he said, was the isolation. Teammates did not exactly rally around him in his convalescence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember not really hearing from anybody and feeling very alone,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cAnd I realized that fighters, they have that fault. They think: It can’t happen to me, it won’t happen to me. They feel the bad stuff and know it\u2019s possible, but you can’t let that seep in. You have to put up these blinders because you have to feel confident. You have to feel secure and ready. If somebody you know gets hurt, you don\u2019t want to think about it too much, but you need to believe it won\u2019t happen to you. You have to convince yourself that you’re going to be able to get through it without that happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I remember feeling pretty alone in that moment and just realizing, ‘Oh, OK, it’s not that they don’t care about me. It\u2019s just that I had a serious injury.’ And people, they don’t want to face the reality that that’s always a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Take my word for it when I tell you there aren\u2019t a lot of fighters with that kind of awareness and ability to talk openly and honesty on these difficult subjects.<\/p>\n

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