Nick Diaz admitted he may be ready to call time on his mixed martial arts career after the bad boy of the Ultimate Fighting Championhship fell short in his bid to take Georges St. Pierre's welterweight title.
The bad blood which had simmered between the pair during the build-up to the bout in Montreal failed to boil over as hometown hero St. Pierre neutralised the Californian's punching power with a calculated grounding of his opponent.
Afterwards Diaz, who lost a unanimous judges decision over the five round fight, admitted he was ready to quit the sport.
"I think I'm going to have to figure out whether I want to keep doing this," the 29-year-old.
"To be honest, I really don't think I've got anymore. I think I'm done with mixed martial arts. I want to help my team, and I'm tired of getting banged up like this.
"I've been thinking this through for a while now, and I've been wanting to get out of this thing for long enough."
Diaz had taunted St. Pierre throughout the build-up to the fight and refused to touch gloves with the defending champion, with the antagonism continuing right up to fight time as Diaz teammate Jake Shields, himself beaten by St. Pierre two years ago, complaining about the champion's hand wraps.
However, Diaz showed respect to his opponent to raise his hand after the fight, which had seen the challenger making an impact on St. Pierre in the third round before being taken down again.
The 31-year-old made his eighth straight title defence since winning it back from Matt Serra five years ago, and his second since returning from serious injury late last year.
"I didn't want to fight with him in a boxing range because he's the best boxer in mixed martial arts, and his ju-jitsu is amazing," St. Pierre said afterwards, adding that despite the trash talk ahead of the fight he had never taken Diaz' taunts personally.
Elsewhere on the card Jonny Hendricks, number one contender to St. Pierre's belt, won a wild match against number two challenger Carlos Condit, while Jake Ellenberger scored a stunning first round knockout of Nate Marquardt to advance his own chances of a shot at the welterweight title.
Chris Camozzi defeated Nick Ring by split decision, while Mike Ricci beat British fighter Colin Fletcher in a unanimous decision.
