With student's victory, emotional UFC vet Kurt Pellegrino can finally say farewell

CHICAGO – For a few years now Kurt Pellegrino has been trying to convince himself that his fighting days are truly done, but for some reason he just couldn’t get the retirement to take.

Maybe that’s because he needed a little help, even if he didn’t realize it until he got it in the form of a successful UFC debut by his student, welterweight George Sullivan (15-3 MMA, 1-0 UFC), who defeated Mike Rhodes (6-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) via unanimous decision on the preliminary card of Saturday’s UFC on FOX 10 event at Chicago’s United Center.

Simply making the trip with Sullivan was somewhat therapeutic for Pellegrino, he said, though he wasn’t quite prepared for the emotions it would evoke.

“Just coming here, it was very weird,” Pellegrino told MMAjunkie. “I told George right before he fought, ‘I bled in the same cage. Now it’s your turn.’”

That was a responsibility Sullivan was very aware of coming into this bout. After accepting the fight on about two weeks’ notice, Sullivan said he was struck with a case of the octagon jitters almost immediately. One calming influence, he said, was his coach and mentor, Pellegrino. Or at least, that’s how it worked in the days leading up to the bout.

“You should have seen him backstage before, though,” Sullivan said. “You’d have thought he was going to fight.”

In some ways, according to Pellegrino, he was. It’s been nearly three years since his last UFC fight, and about two and a half since his last MMA bout. He kept calling it quits, then changing his mind, then being forced to back down again after injuries kept him from returning. But recently, he said, he realized it was time to make a decision.

“I told everyone in my gym, 2014 is going to be the year that I’m taking over the team and coaching,” Pellegrino said. “I’m not going to be selfish and fight anymore. This is it.”

Sullivan made the most of his opportunity. A close bout yielded a unanimous-decision victory, and with that win under his belt, he said, “I think now I can finally be myself.”

As for Pellegrino, what made his retirement struggle so difficult, he said, was the prospect of giving up forever the thrill of victory that comes with a successful night in the cage.

“I had the same exact feeling when [Sullivan] just won,” Pellegrino said. “For three years I’ve been trying to make that [transition]. There’s no more winning. It’s there every day in front of my face, but I can’t win anymore. I felt like I just won. I think I needed that feeling. It ended a lot for me. I got rid of a lot of my demons right there. I could cry.”

Then, with Sullivan’s arm around him, he began to.

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