Chad Mendes still under UFC contract, cites condition for potential return

Three-time UFC featherweight title challenger Chad Mendes still has fights left on his UFC contract, but isn’t very interested in returning to the octagon anytime soon.

Having been away from the UFC since losing to future champion Alexander Volkanovski in December 2018, Mendes spoke with MMA Fighting following a grappling win over Diego Brandao at ADXC 5, and discussed the possibility of putting on MMA gloves again.

“I don’t know. I still I’m under contract with the UFC though,” said Mendes, who challenged Jose Aldo twice and Conor McGregor for UFC titles in the 2010s. “I think I still have three or four fights on that last contract that I’ll just never fight, so I can’t fight MMA anywhere anyways, which I really don’t have any desire to do it, but I was able to do the bare-knuckle boxing and I can come do these grappling events anytime.”

Mendes fought twice under the BKFC banner, knocking out Joshuah Alvarez in 2022 and then losing a split decision to Eddie Alvarez a year later.

“[UFC] would have to pay me a lot of money [to fight again], honestly, and they’re not willing to do it, so no,” Mendes said with a laugh. “Honestly, at this point in my career, I have zero desire to cut any weight. I usually walk around like 175 [pounds]. Unless it’s like big money, it’s not really anything at this point I want to do. I love competing and I absolutely hate cutting weight. If it’s something that I can compete, make some money, have fun and not have to cut weight, sign me up, I’m all for it.”

“I got nothing planned as far as any other competitions,” he added. “I keep saying I’m retired — I left the UFC in 2018, but I started doing bare-knuckle the last two years and my last fight I said I was done. The first one I said I was done, then I ended up coming back and fighting Eddie Alvarez, and then I said I was done again. We’ll see, but I don’t have anything locked up. I mean, I got two little girls at home and a wife and multiple businesses that I’m trying to blow up and make it successful. There’s a lot of time that gets snatched up from all that. It’s honestly hard to put in the amount of time that I actually really want to. I’m the type of guy that wants to train and be 100 percent prepared going into any type of competition because I absolutely hate to lose, so it’s hard for me.”

Mendes was originally slated to grapple against Kevin Lee at ADXC, but Brandao stepped in as a late-notice replacement. The Team Alpha Male representative said he “didn’t have a ton of time” to prepare for the match as he had to split his attention between growing his other businesses, but still won. Mendes is open to competing again for ADXC if the opportunity is interesting, but would appreciate a proper camp next time.

“His wrestling was a little bit better than I was expecting,” Mendes said of Brandao. “I figured I’d be able to control top position a little bit better, but he did a good job of not staying in any bad position. He would explode out, get back up to his feet. We basically just had to turn it into a takedown clinic. And there was a few submissions I attempted that I saw for a split second, but he’s strong and just I wasn’t able to get it done. All in all, I felt it felt good. That’s the first time I’ve competed in any grappling in like four years, so I felt good to get back home.

“I like going against wrestlers better. I have NCAA top-level wrestling, so when I have somebody that’s OK engaging in wrestling and is there to wrestle, I feel great. I was actually expecting Diego to pull guard more and not want to stand up with me, but he was allowing me to do the snapdowns and that stuff gets you tired if you’re not used to it, and he let me do that throughout the whole match. I don’t think it would have been any more difficult, I actually would have probably enjoyed having somebody that was there mixing in more wrestling. We’ll see for next time. Either that fight with AJ [Agazarm] sounds good or somebody else maybe even in the UFC.”