I personally came to a similar point at a similar age to Stoner, obviously on a much less exalted stage. I was in a position of virtually being guaranteed what I had always aspired to in advance of most if not all my peers, many of whom eventually greatly exceeded me admittedly, and suddenly realised I actually didn't enjoy what I was doing. As I also said, someone quite close to me just retired from a multimillion dollar per year job because she was tired of doing it.
We all perhaps don't understand what you are on about, but you similarly don't get our (or Stoner's) position). One thing you are completely wrong about is that the likes of JPS and me are secretly deeply unhappy about him retiring. I and others certainly miss watching him race, but pretty well all his true fans are happy for him to have made his own choice about his own life, it is those who despised him who were and still seem to be miffed about that choice. He actually retired when leading the championship as defending champion, with Honda's best ever contract offer in his back pocket, having really wanted to retire at the end of 2011 before being dissuaded by Mr Nakamoto. His retirement very definitely didn't involve fear of any current competitors, and in particular not of Rossi who was then languishing at Ducati proving that pretty much every criticism made of Stoner while he was at Ducati was completely incorrect. Perhaps he should have been afraid of Marquez for the future, but I see no evidence that he was.
He pretty much said what JL and MM have said in regard to their booing, that a significant proportion of then current MotoGP fans are mindless and similar to hooligan soccer fans, with the difference that GP bike riders are actually risking their lives. He very specifically commented about that element of the MotoGP fanbase, directly saying such "fans" of the sport were back to their usual backbiting only weeks after Marco Simoncelli's death, and if he decided that continuing to prove such people wrong was insufficient motive to keep riding imp he made a mature decision. He also deplored the circus into which Dorna, and I guess by implication Rossi and that element of his fandom, had transformed the sport, and subsequent events have hardly proved him incorrect, again imo.
I actually don't have a problem with you in general and don't classify you with the soccer hooligan Rossi fans, and unlike them I don't doubt you dislike him for your own reasons rather than because of his unfortunate habit of beating Rossi. I got a little annoyed with a post of yours which I think was on the other thread in which you condemned someone for being a formulaic Rossi basher, hardly from a position of strength I would have thought given you are a formulaic Stoner basher as this thread demonstrates.
