The making of a fighter includes buckets of sweat, pints of spilled blood, and tons of tears. To undo all of that, what makes a fighter want to pursue the sport, something huge had to have happen.

Something huge happened to Jonathan Brookins since he won The Ultimate Fighter 12 in 2010 – he started losing in and out of the octagon. Once Brookins won a coveted UFC contract, he went 1-4 and went flat broke. He had to sell his house in Orlando and is sleeping on friends couches, even when he was training for his last fight against Dustin Poirier.

Since his first round defeated to Poirier on December 15, the featherweight from Oregon has decided to pack up and take a spiritual journey to India according to Fightland.

“I think I was ready to go to India and learn something else. Pursuing this sport with the mindset that I have is counterproductive. It didn’t make sense. Mindset is everything. If this is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life it can’t just be a circular argument. It can’t just be about nothing. This quest to be a fighter has gotten to be frivolous, to be the wrong pursuit. I know it can be pursued the right way, but I know I'm not anywhere close to it. I’m not really down to live this temporary, right-now way of life.”

According to the article, Brookins seemed to talk himself out of wanting to continue in MMA. The amount of weight he cut for the fight, though not astronomical, was enough to stress his body to the point of no return.

“At the weigh-ins, I could see myself on the Jumbotron. I was like, “'hit man, you look kind of pathetic. You don’t look like you’re ready to fight; you look skinny.' The kid (Poirier) walks up to me after the weigh-ins and gets in my face and says, 'I want it more than you.' All tough guy: 'I want it more than you, bro.' I was like, 'What the fuck? How does this kid know he wanted it more than me?' It was an interesting thing to say but it was really true. It was the weirdest true shit-talking I’d ever heard in my life. Usually people just talk shit and you’ve got a rebuttal. That was the first time it really made me think.”

Brookins goes on to say he does not know when he would return or if he would continue his MMA career upon coming back.