Uriah Hall has revealed that he was dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts after retiring from mixed martial arts.

While he was never quite able to live up to the hype that came from his season of The Ultimate Fighter, Uriah Hall had a solid career with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. From viral knockouts to wins over the likes of Anderson Silva and Gegard Mousasi, Hall certainly knew how to put on a show.

After his loss to Andre Muniz earlier this summer, though, he decided to walk away from MMA for good.

As it turns out, it led Hall down a pretty dark path, as he revealed in a recent media scrum.

“I was in a weird place,” Hall said.

“After leaving MMA, man, I fell into a really deep hole. If I could talk about it, I fell into a deep depression. A lot of athletes, when you do something for so long, that’s what you identify as, you know? You’re a football player only or you’re a fighter only. People don’t see that when you walk outside you’re like, ‘Wait, there’s nothing else for me to do?’

“I spent the last 20 years of my life committing myself, my soul to one attribute, and then all of a sudden it’s gone, it’s taken away. So, it was some really dark, deep places, and luckily I had the right people around me to support me.”

Hall opens up

“When I say I felt depressed, I even at one point looked at my firearm,” Hall said. “Like, wait a minute, I can go down a really dark path if I don’t get out of this. And people don’t talk about that s***.

“Depression is a real thing, and if you don’t have the right support group, support system, you won’t get out of it, man. If you look at like Robin Williams and all those types of people, you’re like, ‘How the f*** did you kill yourself?’ I get it. Like, at that moment, I finally f***ing understood. … I sat on my couch for literally a week straight not knowing what to do. I remember opening the door for the first time seeing sunlight, I was like, ‘What the f***.’”

Quotes via MMA Junkie

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