Fans have speculated for months that Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva may be one devastating knockout loss away from retirement, but could Rich Franklin, his opponent on June 23 at UFC 147, be in exactly the same boat?

Franklin, now 37 years old, has three knockout losses on his resume since 2006, and his recent comments in an interview with Sherdog hinted that he's content with slowing the pace of his fighting career.

"With my fight career, mentally I'm at a point where I'm slowing down," Franklin said in the interview. "I remember there was a point when I was young when I wanted to try to fit six fights into one year just to see if I could do it. Now I'm like 'there's no way'. Two, maybe three and I'm good with that pace."

Franklin hasn't been in quite as many standup slugfests as Silva, so I'm not suggesting he'll be knocked into retirement due to health concerns.

In my view, Franklin simply has nothing left to prove inside the cage, and he has a long career in broadcasting and acting ahead of him. At this point in his career, he's taking meaningless fights that are essentially brawls against aging legends on the down slope of their careers.

In his last two bouts, he took on Forrest Griffin and Chuck Liddell in scraps that had nothing to do with moving up the ladder in the light heavyweight and middleweight divisions.

In each division, he's still a few fights away from notching a title shot, and the fighters he's been matched up against aren't legitimate top five contenders, which means he's essentially just spinning his wheels without moving up.

Franklin is still a professional fighter who can perform at a high level, but it's not likely that we'll ever see him step into the cage again with Anderson Silva. As for the light heavyweight division, it's doubtful that Franklin would ever go toe-to-toe with Jon Jones at this point in his career.

Where that leaves him is at a crossroads, fighting the likes of Cung Le, Wanderlei Silva and other fan favorites on the wrong sides of their careers.

Later in the Sherdog interview, Franklin said he would like to get involved with film work or sports commentating when his fight career is over.

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Is "Rich Franklin Vs Wanderlei Silva II" a Retirement Bout? Fan's View