For three decades, Jeff Monson was one of combat sport’s most restless competitors. He earned a shot at the UFC heavyweight title, shared the cage with Fedor Emelianenko, collected major grappling titles and, well into his fifties, kept finding new ways to test himself. At 55, the US-born veteran and Russian citizen chose his moment to stop. On 25 October in Brest, he lost to Ivan Sholtoianu (MDA) by unanimous decision over four rounds in an IBA Legend bout at IBA.PRO 21, which he had insisted beforehand would be the last fight of his career involving punches.

“My body just isn’t at the same level anymore. When I go to the gym and see the young guys, I realise that. I still have a lot of experience, but my body isn’t the same. I don’t want people to come and watch Jeff Monson and think, ‘He’s not at that level anymore. He can’t really compete.’ I want them to say, ‘He’s 55, but he can still fight. He’s still a good athlete,’” Monson told IBA before the bout.

The moment it became clear

Monson has talked about retiring before, but this time, he says, it is real. The decision had been building for years, and it crystallised a few weeks before the bout during a sparring session with young fighters in Yekaterinburg.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, these guys are the next generation.’ That was the moment. I thought, ‘This is it. Absolutely, this is it.’”

He prepared for his farewell in Ufa, where he lives, training almost every day with his friend and training partner Denis. Unlike many athletes who struggle to let go, Monson never fought because he had nothing else in his life. He has a family, government work in Russia and a growing network of free sports schools for children. What kept him going was simply a love of sport.

“Inside, I still feel like a fighter. When I go to a gym and see young athletes, I remember myself 20 years ago. Sometimes I feel jealous because I remember what I could do. It’s hard to look in the mirror and accept that you’re no longer the person you used to be.”

The defeats that shaped him

Asked which moments of his career stand out, Monson points first to two losses. His defeat to Tim Sylvia in the UFC heavyweight title fight still stays with him: a win would have changed his life and made him a UFC champion forever.

Then there was Fedor Emelianenko, a contest Monson calls the best and worst fight of his life. Having watched wrestler after wrestler take the Russian down and fail to do anything with him, Monson believed he had found the answer: wait for Emelianenko to attack, take him down and submit him.

“But he was too smart. He turned it into a kickboxing match, and I lost.”

Yet that defeat set his life on a new course. Afterwards, Monson met President Putin, was invited back to Russia and eventually became a Russian citizen.

A title for the family

The victory that meant the most came on the mat rather than in the ring: the world jiu-jitsu championship in Krakow, Poland. For years, his two children had only seen their father compete on television while he trained in Miami and travelled the world for fights. In Krakow, for the first time, they were there in person.

“When I won, it meant so much because they could finally understand why their dad had spent so much time away from home.”

They never watched him fight in MMA. His daughter wanted to, but his wife was always too scared to let the children see him getting hurt – something Monson says he fully understands.

A new respect for boxing

Monson used to argue that MMA was the hardest combat sport, because it demands everything from boxing and kickboxing to wrestling, jiu-jitsu and sambo. Boxing has changed his mind.

“Now that I’ve immersed myself in it, I have a much greater appreciation for boxing. You can’t use takedowns or jiu-jitsu. You have to solve everything with your boxing skills.”

He has been a fan since childhood, when he watched Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns on Sunday afternoons. If he could borrow any boxer’s style, it would be Duran’s, for the way he came forward looking for the knockout. Not long ago, Monson even met Hearns, one of his childhood heroes, on a flight, and was delighted to find him a genuinely nice person.

Even so, he hesitates to call himself a boxer. He has improved a lot, he says, but claiming the title would be “a bit of a stretch”. And he has never boxed for money. In his jiu-jitsu days, he often paid for his own travel to compete for prizes of $500 or $1,000. Boxing is a challenge, and, after too many injuries, it is the one combat sport his body can still handle.

He has also tried bare-knuckle fighting, which he found even harder than boxing. The cuts came easily, he admits, though he believes his clinch work would have suited the sport had he discovered it younger.

Monson on the heavyweights

Asked about the greatest heavyweights, Monson singles out two men he feels are underrated: Larry Holmes, for his long reign as champion, and Lennox Lewis, who avenged every defeat of his career in a rematch. He also places Oleksandr Usyk among the all-time greats.

“Is there anyone who’s actually better than Usyk? No, I don’t think so.”

A Tyson Fury–Anthony Joshua fight, in his view, has come a few years too late. He would favour Fury, provided he prepares properly. He would also back Murat Gassiev against Deontay Wilder, calling the Russian the better boxer despite Wilder’s devastating right hand.

“Every time I watch him fight, he seems to get a little better. I don’t think anyone knows what his limit is yet.”

Life after the ring

Retirement will not slow Monson down. He currently runs 38 free sports schools for children across Russia and dreams of opening more than 100. When a city invites him, he helps open a school, trains a coach, sends training materials every week and visits twice a year to give free masterclasses. Through his Glavny Boy project, he also helps soldiers who have returned from combat with injuries, using sport, psychological support and partnerships with colleges to help them rebuild their lives.

He may not be finished with competition altogether. Monson is open to taking part in Real American Freestyle (RAF) wrestling, but said before the bout that his days of punching and being punched would end in Brest.

“I’ll always be on the mat in some capacity.”

Getting up again

Drawing on six years he spent working in psychology in the United States, Monson tries to give the children he coaches one lesson above all: they will fail.

“They will lose. They’ll get injured. People will laugh at them. They won’t succeed at everything they try. But you have to get up every time. That’s what sport teaches you: resilience and discipline.”

It is a philosophy that has carried him through three decades of victories and defeats, and one he took with him into his final fight.

“Losing isn’t the end. What matters is what you do afterwards.”