It was a question asked by a student during his day job as a youth support worker at Calwell High that made him realise it.

"When is your next fight?" Edwards has been asked countless times before, and his answer was simply "my manager is looking into it".

For some reason that short conversation got the mixed martial arts heavyweight (4-1) thinking. For the first time in 15 years, Edwards feels as though he doesn't have to fight.

So he won't. Now he is set to announce his retirement on Saturday.

"I literally get asked every day when my next fight is, and for some reason that just popped into my head, and this is the right thing to do. It's time," Edwards said.

"I was really emotional on the day I started thinking about it. I went for a drive to my old house where I first started hitting the bag, and this was like 1am on a Tuesday morning.

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"It was just like the end of a 15-year relationship. It was my first love, the thing that helped me turn from a boy into a man, it taught me so much, it made me resilient.

"All the good things I am, if it's not from my mum, it's from martial arts."

Edwards flirted with retirement during the more difficult times in his life that saw him battle an oxycodone addiction. But the mere thought of walking away back then left him with no sense of identity or purpose.

But now?

He walks away relatively unscathed. He struggles to make a fist with one hand and accepts he may one day pay the price for "a bunch of concussions" down the track.

Yet it was his foray into combat sports which kept him on track. He believes the mental battles he would have faced without it could have been catastrophic.

Kickboxing, boxing and ultimately MMA transformed him from a kid that went to school aged 12 with crippling anxiety and "a teenager who literally shit in his pants with fear during a physical altercation at the pub at 18" into one of the city's finest scrappers.

Edwards walks away without the UFC contract he craved, and finishes with a loss to Francimar Barroso in the Professional Fighters League's heavyweight tournament.

But he wouldn't change a thing.

"I don't live with regret. There's a million things I could have, should have, would have done different. They're just lessons learnt," Edwards said.

"Physically I had the potentially to go a lot further than I did and make a lot more money than I did.

"From how low I got along the way, I was really low and not in a good place, to come back from that in a third sport on the world stage and be competitive against an experienced guy, I'm pretty happy to end it on that note.

"I've got another thing to go to with my youth work, I love doing that. I'm in the best relationship ever, and I want to put my time and effort into those things now.

"Everything has always been second to fighting for 15 years. It put a lot of stress on me financially, because I have always prioritised training and fighting over everything.

"I travelled the world, did some really cool shit. Now I'm in a really good field of work I enjoy, I'm in a good relationship, I'm pretty healthy except for one hand, it's time."

There is no shortage of highlights.

There is his knockout of John Hopoate, an ANBF Australian heavyweight boxing championship, fighting at Madison Square Garden and the Tokyo Dome, taking on Alistair Overeem, and a return to the world stage with the PFL among them.

Yet still, "the most important fight I ever had was the John Verran tribute fight" dedicated to his late trainer for a kickboxing world title here in Canberra.

"He told me 'Benny, you're going to be a world champion'. John was always such a strong father figure in my life," Edwards said.

"For us to go from me being a 20-year-old kid to fighting for a world title in five years, it was pretty awesome. We were both looking forward to it and then John died unexpectedly at 38 years old, six weeks before the fight.

"We decided to go ahead with the fight and donate all of the money to his wife, their two adopted kids and their newborn. We ended up getting 50 grand for them.

"That's got to be the highlight. That was the most important fight I ever had for sure. I have never felt pressure like it, but I rose to the occasion.

"I was so nervous I couldn't even brush my teeth, I couldn't put the toothbrush in my mouth or I would start vomiting. That's no word of a lie, I was that nervous.

"To rise to the occasion and get the job done in one round with an emphatic knockout with everyone there on the tribute night, that was the best night I had in the ring."

Will he ever miss that feeling? Maybe, but Edwards walks away content with what he has achieved.

"If I keep feeling how I'm feeling at the moment, I'm going to be just fine," Edwards said.

AT A GLANCE

Ben Edwards in combat sports: 67 fights for 52 wins (44 knockouts), 12 losses, three draws. Boxing record: 5-1-1; MMA record: 4-1.