As people age their bodies just simply will not allow them to do as much as they could when they were younger. Some of that can be offset by good physical conditioning, but at some point even that ceases to be enough. However, all the data compiled on MMA so far shows that it’s not as dangerous as football or boxing, so in theory the average age of
MMA fighters when they retire could be higher than the retirement age for other sports. When MMA first started to become popular a lot of the fighters were older guys who came in from other sports. Now there are a lot of younger guys (and girls) starting in the sport. Some of them are winning serious title fights in their early to mid-twenties, but whether that makes it harder for older guys to compete still remains to be seen.
Schools like MMA Richmond are seeing people start to train at a younger age, though, which is an indication of the trend that the sport is taking and what it might do in the future.