After considering retirement following his loss to UFC featherweight champ Jose Aldo earlier this month, Kenny Florian has decided to keep fighting, but won’t return to the Octagon for six months as he plans to move back up to lightweight.
From the Boston Herald:
“I still love this sport tremendously and still want to be a part of it,” Florian said. “I know myself and it’s not even just being competitive, but it’s just being there learning and competing. There’s still very much a fire burning there so I’m going to do it…I didn’t get in this to be second-best, of course. But at the same time, not everybody can be a champion. I’m just going to go back to 155, work my way up, take it one fight at a time and see where it puts me.
“I think there’s exciting fights out there for me, there’s still challenges out there for me, there’s still things I’d like to try to improve on and that’s the main thing. I don’t necessarily have the title in my eyes, but I do have my own personal goals as far as the technical level that I want to get to…I don’t like making any limits on how many fights or anything like that. I’m still going to take it one fight at a time. I know I’ve still got several good fights in me. I could fight for the next three years. I could fight maybe another couple of fights. I don’t know. I’m going to take it how I feel in training, how I feel fight after fight and I’m just going to take it like that.”
Florian (14-6) went 9-3 in 12 fights at lightweight between 2006 and 2010, but came up short in two bids for the lightweight title. A loss to contender Gray Maynard last year sent Florian to 145-pounds, where he topped Diego Nunes in June to quickly earn a title shot, but dropped a unanimous decision to Aldo at UFC 136.
