EXCLUSIVE | After being forced out of UFC 218, Al Iaquinta is unsure about his fighting future

I kind of accepted the fight, but I never signed a bout agreement. Basically I told them I wasn’t gonna be fighting the day after I agreed to the fight. I was kind of put under the gun, I think a little bit to accept the fight. You know I was kind of told I had to give them an answer pretty quick. It was a fight I thought I really wanted. I thought it was a good stylistic match-up for me, so I accepted the fight, and then thinking about it over the course of a day, we realized it probably wasn’t a smart decision for my health, for everything.

So, I called Sean Selby the next day and I told him that I was out. It took them a while to release that I wasn’t fighting. I don’t know what took so long, but that was how that kind of went down. Yeah, I mean Paul Felder’s a tough guy. I respect him tremendously. His skillset, he’s got great offense and he’s got even better defense so it’s a fight that I definitely don’t wanna go in unprepared for, and it’s a fight that if I was to go in … to go in 100% you really got to be every confident in that what you get out of it is what you kind of put in.

I don’t know if that makes any sense. You beat a guy like Paul Felder. He’s unranked. We were working on a contract. I felt kind of rushed with the whole, I just … I was under the gun, I felt like and to negotiate a new contract in a day. I just didn’t like the way those things were going. I felt like I was in an unadvantageous position no matter what the scenario was. Even to win the fight, even if I did on a quick knockout again, I don’t get bonuses. The contract what it was, the amount of time that I would’ve had to put in, the time that I would’ve had to take away from the other things I was doing … just all roads led to just hold off, keep doing what I’m doing.

I feel like I’m coming towards the end of my career the way that things are looking out, so if I’m gonna fight, it’s gotta be worth it. I have to be feeling really good. I can’t be selling houses and fighting guys like Paul Felder. It’s just not, you know.

I don’t need surgery. I’m just kind of playing it by ear seeing how I’m feeling. When the Diego Sanchez fight got offered to me, it felt like I was in a good position. It felt like it was a good fight for me at the time. I was coming off a two year layoff, it’s a good fight. To be honest with you, I really didn’t train the right way for that fight. Financially I was not able to train for that fight. It’s insane. It’s really insane, but thank God I was able to go in there and perform the way I did, but it’s not always gonna work out like that.

The way I see it, I’ve been taking the risks the whole time. I went on to the Ultimate Fighter, those contracts are bullsh-t, there’s no money on the Ultimate Fighter, so that’s a huge risk. I got injured a lot on that. You go through the Ultimate, I made it to the finals so I got a contract. You think you’re gonna make money once you get into the UFC. I don’t know. I don’t wanna even keep harping on it.

I just wanna feel comfortable going in there and fighting. I wanna feel like I’m not holding back anything. I wanna feel like I’m just letting it all go, and I don’t know if I would’ve felt that way. I just love fighting so much. I’m in a really weird position right now. It’s like I don’t know.