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James Haskell confirms he is set for an incredible sports career change
By Alex Shaw
After falling out of favour with England over the course of the last couple of seasons, James Haskell announced his retirement from professional rugby back in May at the age of 34.
The back row won 77 caps for his country as well as touring New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions in 2017. Unfortunately for Haskell, injuries began to dog him later in his career, particularly in his one-year stint at Northampton Saints, which is when he ultimately decided to call time on his career.
"This next chapter was supposed to go a very different way, however that is the nature of professional sport. I have never spent so much time injured in my entire career, but I'm doing everything I can to help the squad here until my contract ends.
"Retiring is obviously a really difficult decision for me to make; professional rugby has been the centre of my life for such a long time now and while it's weird to imagine living without it, I look to the future with huge excitement.
"I look back at my career and have been very lucky to have done most things there are to do in rugby. Sadly, I will never know what it's like to win a World Cup or represent the Barbarians."
Haskell's career in professional sport is not over, however, as the former Wasps man has agreed to join Bellator, an American MMA promotion, where he will compete in the heavyweight division.
Haskell has always been active outside of rugby, whether that was through business ventures or media appearances, and now he will be able to try his hand at something completely different.
The former rugby star has trained at London Shootfighters previously, as well as working as an MMA pundit for BT Sport. Bellator have announced that there will be a press conference in London to introduce Haskell as part of the promotion's stable of fighters.
Haskell previously represented Wasps, Stade Francais, Ricoh Black Rams and the Highlanders, enjoying a rugby career that spanned four countries and three continents before hanging up his boots with Northampton.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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