Former Alabama linebacker Eryk Anders will start his countdown to retirement from the octagon when he squares off against Marc-Andre Barriault in a middleweight bout at UFC 289 on Saturday night.

Anders said he planned to fight five more times. At 36, Anders said he sees “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“My kids are getting older, so they’re more important to me than any of this stuff,” Anders said. “At the moment right now, I’m trying to get my money, build my legacy and try to set them up. But if I keep fighting, they’re going to mess around and graduate high school, and I’ll miss their life.”

Anders said he wasn’t hanging on for the money, though.

“I could live comfortably right now if I wanted to,” Anders said on Wednesday. “But I really love fighting. It’s still a passion that burns inside me. I kind of want to wear it out and ride off into the sunset.”

The Anders-Barriault bout will kick off the main card at UFC 289 at 9 p.m. CDT Saturday at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. The women’s bantamweight title fight between champion Amanda Nunes and Irene Aldana headlines the card. ESPN+ will carry the fights.

Both Anders and Barriault won their most recent outings.

Anders took care of Kyle Daukaus in the second round of a middleweight bout at UFC on ESPN 42 on Dec. 3 in Orlando, Florida. Anders won by a technical knockout with 2:45 left in the second round, when referee Keith Peterson stopped the match.

Anders has a UFC record of 7-7 and pro MMA mark of 15-7.

A Canadian, Barriault is coming off a second-round knockout of Julian Marquez at UFC 285 on March 4 in Las Vegas. He has a 4-5 UFC record and is 15-6 as pro MMA fighter.

Barriault said he had wanted to fight Anders for a while.

“I’ve been calling Eryk out for four years now,” Barriault said on Wednesday. “Back when he fought Lyoto Machida (on Feb. 3, 2018), I saw his fight. I was like, ‘OK.’ I saw his style. He was more raw. A big dude, strong. Not the most technical, but a big heart. He always goes forward. That’s the way that I fight, so since then I, a couple times, I call him out in the media, and he said, ‘OK. Just do your thing, win some fights and we’ll see maybe one day.’ And here we are.”

Barriault’s eagerness to fight him doesn’t matter much to Anders, but he thought it added some spice for fans.

“He’s been calling me out since before he was even in the UFC,” Anders said. “… I think it makes it more enticing for the fans to watch when somebody says, ‘I want to fight this guy’ over and over and over again.

“He’s just going to have to remember after I beat him on Saturday that he asked for that.”

Although MMA Lab in Phoenix, Arizona, is his home gym now, to get ready for his run to retirement, Anders traveled to train with coaches throughout the country.

“I’ve got five fights left, and I’m going to retire,” Anders told Thomas Gerbasi of UFC.com. “So what do I have to do to win these last five fights? I’ve been around the game a while, so I’m not saying everybody knows me, but I know a lot of people, so it was easy to make those connections and bridge those gaps when it comes to the best possible combination of coaching, training partners and things like that.”

Anders played football at Alabama from 2006 through 2009. In Anders’ final appearance — the BCS national championship game — his fumble-causing sack of Texas quarterback Garret Gilbert gave the Crimson Tide the football at the Longhorns’ 3-yard line while holding a 24-21 lead with 3:02 left in the game. Anders led Alabama with seven tackles in the 37-21 victory over the Longhorns for the first of coach Nick Saban’s six national titles with the Tide.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.