During today’s fight card of Font vs Garbrandt, UFC lightweight contender Paul Felder, who was working the commentary desk, announced his retirement. Felder expressed he feels like it is time for him to hang up his gloves.

At the press conference, Paul Felder shared more about his decision to retire from active competition. Incidentally, “The Irish Dragon” was the last fighter who defeated the recently crowned Charles “Do Bronx” Oliveira inside the octagon. Felder emerged victorious after a war against Oliveira.

He joked about the fact that Oliveira could not avenge that loss.

“I’ll just hold on to that knockout of Charles Oliveira and get the hell out of here. Alright, yup, you’re never getting that one back, buddy. I knocked your ass out but now you’re the champion and you look great doing it,” Felder said.

Oliveira has been on a tear at 155 with a nine-fight win streak. His last loss came to Paul Felder at UFC 218 via a second-round TKO. ‘Do Bronx’ has been calling out for a rematch with Felder ever since.

Did the loss to Paul Felder make Oliveira champion?

Oliveira has said that the loss to Felder ignited a fire within him, which motivated him to set his sails straight to the championship. After the loss to Felder, Charles Oliveira said that he was born again from the ashes and also pointed out that he and his team had to make several changes to his game after the defeat. Oliveira has been nothing but dominant in his octagon appearances ever since.

“I never called out opponents. I have always accepted all the fights,” Oliveira said. “But I think now it’s time. That is the reason I called out Conor McGregor and Paul Felder, who is the last guy that beat me,” Oliveira said in the post-fight interview after his KO victory over Jared Gordon at UFC on ESPN+22.

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The fight between the two at UFC 218 packed fireworks and was an interesting back-and-forth affair. Oliveira tried to enforce his superior grappling in the initial parts of the fight, almost submitting Felder via a D’Arce choke. Felder managed to escape the onslaught and mounted his own ground and pound offense to close off round 1. He finished the fight in the second round by raining heavy elbows from mount on the jiu-jitsu ace.

Felder felt the path to the title was unclear to him

In his retirement announcement, Felder expressed he does not see a clear path towards the title and does not want to hold up the division. Felder is still a top 10 contender in the Lightweight division but is on a two-fight skid. His last fight was a short notice bout against Rafael dos Anjos at UFC Vegas 14. Felder gave up a split decision to the former champion despite taking the fight at 5 days’ notice. ‘The Irish Dragon’ had expressed interest in retiring after his loss to Dan Hooker early in 2020.

WATCH: When Paul Felder Submitted His Opponent With Elbows