Darren Elkins has fought 30 times in the UFC. Saturday at the APEX is the 31st, and the last.
Elkins, 42, confirmed at fight-week media day that he is retiring after facing Yadier Del Valle. He has been on the roster since 2010 and is 19-11 inside it.
The fight sits on UFC Vegas 120, also billed UFC Fight Night 284, a 12-bout card at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas.
Elkins was direct about why he is stopping.
"I'm older in age now, but mostly I'm starting to get hurt a little bit more often," he said.
The part he kept returning to was the manner of the exit. Most fighters, he said, do not leave on their own terms. They get cut, or they announce it on social media afterwards, once the decision has already been made for them.
Elkins picked a date and said so in advance. That is the rarer thing.
The career nearly ended once before. After a 2014 loss to Hacran Dias he considered walking away. He changed teams instead and won six straight, a run that included a win over Dennis Bermudez.
Six in a row is a long time to be wrong about your own ending.
Del Valle was 10 years old when Elkins made his professional MMA debut.
Asked about bare-knuckle boxing, Elkins laughed.
"I'd probably die," he said.
He is open to grappling-only competition.
"Man, it's been fun," he said.
Our model picks against him. Del Valle comes in at 64.1%, most likely by decision, and that pick is unflagged. Our two flagged fights on this card are elsewhere: Alexia Thainara at 75.5% over Amanda Lemos, which is the strongest read we have on the card, and Ty Miller at 73.2% over Billy Ray Goff. Nothing reached LOCK.
We say that plainly because the alternative is worse. A model that nudged its numbers toward the sentimental pick would be a model we could not trust the rest of the year. The 64.1% on Del Valle came out of the same process as every other number on this card. Elkins turning 42 and walking away sits outside what the model reads.
We hold the pick loosely all the same. Unflagged means what it says: our flagging bar sits above 64.1%, and Del Valle fell short of it.
What the number cannot see is the thing the card is actually about. A fighter joined the UFC roster in 2010, went 19-11 across 30 fights, and reached the point where he is getting hurt more often. He said so out loud, on the record, with one fight still to go.
That is the ending. He chose it.