Matt Schnell is back in the cage this weekend, and this time the 36-year-old flyweight is meeting Alessandro Costa on short notice at UFC Vegas 118. The matchup tops the prelims on June 6, 2026, at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada, while Schnell is also trying to explain the retirement that followed one of the roughest nights of his career.
That retirement came two years ago, after Schnell was submitted in the second round by Cody Durden. He left his gloves in the middle of the cage, did not give a post-fight interview and did not speak to the media afterward. On UFC Vegas 118 media day, Schnell did not try to dress it up. “I was very disappointed. Disappointed in myself and just frustrated,” he said.
He said the reaction in the cage was part emotion and part fear that his run in the UFC was over. “I think I just pitched a fit there in that moment, and I also thought the UFC was going to cut me,” Schnell said. He added that Hunter Campbell met him in the back and that he has a strong relationship with Mick Maynard, but he did not want to lean on that. “I thought it might be my last one, so I figured get ahead of it a little bit and just retire,” he said.
The move did not stick. Seven months later, Schnell was booked against Jimmy Flick, won, and snapped a three-fight losing streak. That result mattered because his retirement had come at a time when his place in the division looked shaky, and the recent numbers have stayed uneven: Schnell is 2-4 in his last six fights and has been finished in all four of those losses. He can still point to a 2022 Submission of the Year contender over Sumudaerji, but the later run has been built on damage as much as momentum.
Schnell now frames the retirement as something he would undo if he could. “I could say, I didn’t get cut — I retired,” he said. Then he added the line that gets closest to the truth of it. “Not my best moment, if I’m being honest — an emotional moment, one where, if I could take it back, I would have.” Against Costa, a Brazilian newcomer with a tough test in front of him, Schnell is fighting not just for a result this weekend, but against the version of his career that briefly looked ready to end in that cage two years ago.
