When longtime UFC veteran Alan Belcher announced his retirement from MMA this past week, the news wasn’t exactly shocking. The 31-year old Mississippi-based fighter last competed at UFC 159 against Michael Bisping nearly two-and-a-half years ago, a middleweight bout in which he lost after receiving an eye-poke that he couldn’t come back from.
At the time, an eye injury was scary for Belcher, who’d undergone surgeries on his right eye after suffering vision loss due to a detached retina. He received eight stitches on his eyelid after the Bisping fight, and was ultimately okay.