To many, the recent retirement of Joseph Benavidez marked the end of an era in the flyweight division the perennial contender helped establish in the UFC.
Tim Elliott, an opponent, friend, and training partner, doesn’t necessarily agree, because the way he sees it, the old guard at 125 pounds still has a pretty damn good rep in him.
“Joe B., he’s done everything that he wants to do in the sport, and I’m one of those guys, I like to fight, so the UFC’s gonna have to fire me,” said Elliott. “There’s no retirement. They’re gonna have to fire me again.”
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That’s not a surprising statement coming from Elliott, whose first stint in the Octagon from 2012 to 2015 resulted in a 2-4 record and a subsequent release. But since winning The Ultimate Fighter in 2016 and starting a second UFC stay, the Missouri product has won four bouts, including two in a row over Ryan Benoit and Jordan Espinosa. It’s been enough to put him in the Top Ten and keep his dreams of a world title alive.
As for being one of the last veterans standing in a division full of young guns, Elliott is ready for the charge coming his way.
“I think a whole new wave is coming thanks to guys like him (Benavidez) and guys like me who stuck around,” he said. “The division was almost gone and I know I had people telling me, ‘Hey, it’s time to go up to ’35,’ and I felt like I could, for sure, compete at 135, but I didn’t want to be one of the guys that just left the division because they were asking me to. I felt like the division was good enough, there were plenty of good guys, and Joe B., he paved the way for guys like me and even the younger guys. So us old heads are on our way out, but in the same sense, there’s a whole new group of young guys that are savages right now.”
