UFC Heavyweight Announces Retirement Due To Health Issues

A UFC veteran has decided to hang up his gloves citing health issues.

Stefan Struve has competed under the UFC banner since February 2009. Struve has shared the Octagon with the likes of Junior dos Santos, Alistair Overeem, Andrei Arlovski, and Mark Hunt. He even scored victories over current UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic and MMA legend Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

Struve took to his Twitter account to make the announcement (h/t MMAFighting.com).

What’s up everyone. I got an announcement to make today. It was a little too long so I had to improvise, you can read more in the attachement. I have decided to retire from professional fighting. Thank you all for the support 🙏🏻❤️ pic.twitter.com/z2eZAALUoP

— Stefan Struve (@StefanStruve) February 15, 2021

“What’s up everyone. I got an announcement to make today. It was a little too long so I had to improvise, you can read more in the attachment. I have decided to retire from professional fighting. Thank you all for the support.

“I was able to take my space and time the last couple of months to overthink this, so this time it really is for good. I’ve had an inner ear issue I’ve been battling since May last year. I caught a viral infection that has damaged my vestibular system and the hearing nerve in my right ear. After new tests done recently we learned that the vestibular system is not working properly, the first conclusion in May was that it was most likely [Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo].

“Because of this I have also been dealing with vertigo issues, and also loss of hearing and tinnitus, a ringing noise in my ear. After I caught it in May things got a lot better, after a couple rough weeks at first. I was doing good although still experiencing some vertigo and other minor issues but my idea was, especially with the doctors telling me the issues would go away after a while, to just keep going and ignore it until it really was gone completely. Unfortunately during [my most recent] fight some of the issues came back after getting hit flush on the right ear, it was a punch that should not be an issue normally.”

Struve last competed back in October 2020. He suffered a first-round knockout loss to Tai Tuivasa at UFC 254.

“The Skyscraper” ends his pro MMA career with a record of 29-13. He began his career back in March 2005. He was just one month shy of competing in MMA for 16 years.