Randy Couture credits fellow ex-UFC champ Miesha Tate for 'going out on your own terms'

Randy Couture is an early MMA star, a two-division champion and a 2006 UFC Hall of Fame inductee. He also knows a little something about retiring.

After all, he joked, he knows something about it, “having been there – and done it twice.”

Aside from a short-lived retirement in 2006, Couture spent 14 years competing in MMA – often at the highest level of the sport. So when former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate (18-7 MMA, 5-4 UFC) announced her retirement following this past Saturday’s UFC 205 loss to Raquel Pennington (9-5 MMA, 6-2 UFC), Couture knew what was probably going through her head.

The 53-year-old fan favorite said it’s “such a personal thing” to decide on a retirement and that it’s hard to explain to people who haven’t been in their shoes.

Still, he said, he admired the way Tate, a former Strikeforce champion who helped women’s MMA reach mainstream status, went about calling it quits following her pay-per-view bout at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“I think there’s something to be said for going out on your own terms – not waiting until some doctor or some promoter’s telling you, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this anymore,'” he said.

He said it also takes some serious self-awareness to make the decision and to know when to do it.

“Like Miesha said, ‘This isn’t my time anymore,'” he said. “I think (she and Dan Henderson) kind of came to that place, that realization. You’ve got to be honest. You’ve got to look at where you’re at, why you’re doing this.

“It’s not just about going out there to cash another check, to get another check. It’s about wanting and aspiring to be the best in you weight class, the best in the sport. And if you feel like you’ve been there, done that and realistically maybe not going to be there again, then why? Why are you going to grind out another camp? Why are you going to risk your health, your joints, your neck, your whatever, to go and get another check?”

Couture, though, said he understand why guys like Chael Sonnen and Tito Ortiz, former UFC fighters who soon meet under the Bellator banner, are still chugging along. If they feel like they still have something left in the tank, it can be hard to call it quits.

That’s why he credits Tate for making the decision for herself.

“It’s a very, very personal thing,” he said.

Check out the full video above.

And for more on UFC 205, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show, available on SiriusXM Ch. 93, is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.