Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is getting closer to retirement.

The legendary heavyweight from Brazil, who turns 38 years old in July, has bounced back and forth between wins and losses inside the Octagon since losing the interim UFC heavyweight championship in 2008, and plans to hang up the gloves in less than three years.

"I still have four fights left in my contract," Nogueira told MSN. "Until the end (of the contract), I don’t think too much about the future.

"It will depend on the results of my fights. I don’t want to keep losing too many fights. I think I have two or three years left. I’m almost 38, and I don’t want to fight after I’m 40."

A former PRIDE heavyweight champion, "Minotauro," is still recovering from an injury sustained in his second-round submission loss to Fabricio Werdum in June, and plans to return to the cage in May.

"I don’t have a date (to fight again) yet," he said. "The UFC said five names, and I believe I’ll be fighting again until May. I’ll be ready in three months."

"Minotauro" didn’t reveal who was offered as an opponent for his next fight in the UFC, but the name he expected to hear wasn’t one of them.

"Unfortunately, they didn’t offer Frank Mir," said Nogueira, who was stopped twice by Mir under the UFC banner. "I would like to fight him. In our last fight, I was kicking his ass and he came back and got my arm."

Mir, the first man to ever submit and knock out "Minotauro" in MMA, is scheduled to take on Alistair Overeem on Feb. 1 at UFC 169.