MMA Junkie Radio<\/a>. \u201cIn 2009, one of my brothers passed away and he was living in Arizona at the time. So when we got the news, me, two of my brothers and my dad went out there to kind of gather his belongings, see him, kind of identify him and bring him back. \u2026 I was in this little store, kind of like a Native American store, and they had a bunch of rosaries \u2013 little wooden rosaries.<\/p>\n\u201cSo I picked one up, one for myself, one for each of my brothers, one for my dad, and one for my brother who had just passed away. At his wake, I had the priest bless all the rosaries, and I gave one to each of my brothers and we buried one with my brother. So that was kind of my way of bringing him with me to every fight, because he was really proud (of me).\u201d<\/p>\n
After his penultimate fight, a knockout loss to Calvin Kattar, Ricardo Lamas ended up misplacing his rosary. The loss of this precious item ultimately factored into his decision to hang up the gloves.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter my last fight, because of my hospitalization, I was in the hospital, putting all my crap away. I misplaced the rosary,\u201d Lamas said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know where it was, and I kind of forgot about it because I pretty much only bring it to fights. And I\u2019m getting ready to leave for Miami, and because I had to go straight to Vegas from Miami, I\u2019m getting everything ready to bring to the fight, like my flag, and I\u2019m looking for the rosary. I\u2019m tearing my house apart and my wife is helping me look, and I couldn\u2019t find it anywhere and I\u2019m like, \u2018(Expletive).\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I just had to leave without it. And the other crazy thing is that my brother passed away on Aug. 28, 2009. The day of the weigh-ins was Aug. 28, and that night, I had made weight. So I\u2019m on weight, I go to bed, I wake up about 3 a.m. just because I\u2019m so thirsty, and I just start scrolling through Facebook and one of my brothers had posted a comment on my late brother\u2019s memorial page, and I commented on it, and I just started scrolling through pictures of him and kind of talking to him in my head and saying, \u2018I know I don\u2019t need a rosary to know that you\u2019re here with me, and please just watch over me just one more time. I just want one more win, and I\u2019ll move on from the sport.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Amazingly, after deciding to compete in one last fight without his rosary, Lamas actually found it in his suitcase.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the next morning, I\u2019m packing up my backpack, the backpack that I use every single day. I\u2019m putting stuff in there, and the main pocket flapped open,\u201d Lamas said. \u201cOn the inside of the main pocket is another pocket with a zipper. The zipper was cracked maybe half an inch, an inch, and I\u2019m just sitting on the bed, and I glance over and look at the backpack and through that half-an-inch hole, I see a piece of the rosary in there. And I was like, \u2018No (expletive) way.\u2019 So I unzip it, stick my hand in and pull the rosary out and just started bursting out into tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut after that happened, I knew something big was going to happen in this fight. One of my corners was staying with me, and I tried telling him about it and I couldn\u2019t even talk. I kept getting choked up. I was crying, and then he started crying, so I\u2019ve never had anything like that happen to me \u2013 if it was a coincidence \u2026 the same day that my brother passed away \u2026 a few hours before, I\u2019m literally talking to him in my head and mention the rosary \u2026 I didn\u2019t have it with me \u2026 and I think it was just his way of letting me know he was still there. So he kept his promise to watch over me, so I\u2019ve got to stick by my word, and I\u2019m going to hang up my gloves after that performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricardo Lamas entered the MMA limelight as a member of the WEC roster, but achieved his biggest successes in the UFC. While he never captured the promotion’s featherweight title, losing a decision to Jose Aldo in his lone bid at that prize, he did pick up victories over top flight foes like Cub Swanson, Charles Oliveira, and Diego Sanchez.<\/p>\n
Congratulations to Ricardo Lamas and his team on an incredible MMA career!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former UFC featherweight title challenger Ricardo Lamas has officially announced his retirement. Lamas teased his potential retirement from competition after his decision win over short-notice replacement opponent Bill Algeo late last month. On Monday, the former UFC featherweight title challenger made it official, and explained how a missing rosary helped him make his decision. Lamas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":292231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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