After 11 years as a professional fighter, the 38-year-old lightweight announced his retirement from the sport back in 2018. There were multiple factors that led to his decision but ultimately Dunham felt burned out with his passion waning for a sport he always loved so much.
“I think the biggest motivation for initially wanting to step away, I had been doing the same thing my whole life,” Dunham explained when speaking to MMA Fighting. “Pretty much since I left college, I started training full time. I’ve been doing the same thing since then and that was 2004.
“So anybody does a single job for that long, they’re going to get tired.