Rich Franklin reflects on hanging up the gloves and his contributions to MMA

On Monday, the UFC former middleweight champion Rich Franklin published a poignant farewell article on The Players Tribune. Though he didn’t say he was retiring in the article, it was a matter of semantics — the 40-year-old Franklin wrote that he was closing one chapter of his life and beginning another.Franklin, who is currently the vice president of the Asia-based promotion, ONE Championship, was instrumental in helping the UFC — and the sport of MMA — get over to the m