UFC and their ability to "let guys go"

Johnnny said:
It's definitely Mousasi. At the time of his departure from the UFC, he was on a 5-fight winning streak, all against ranked opponents. He KO'd the last 4 opponents over a span of 9 months. Has anybody else in UFC history KO'd 4 ranked opponents in 9 months? It has been 5 years since his departure and he is still one of the Top 3 middleweights in the world.

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Bader is another one. He went 18-5 in the UFC and was consistently ranked in the Top 5, including at the time of his departure.

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ryan bader wlaos wasnt gone be champ champ in teh ufc so going to bellator was easy for him.
 
mma is such a racket to begin with. you never really know if the “top 10” guys are actually the 10 best, or the 10 most popular. if the ufc releases someone popular, 90% of the time i assume its because the price tag doesnt match their drawing power at the box office, so to speak. this includes popular fighters who have peaked interest-wise, even if they are still relatively popular. that is why they let rory, yoel, davis, bader, go. these guys were good enough to get 6fig paydays, but not good enough to be champ, and not good enough to retain fan interest. they were depreciating investments you could say. so the ufc got rid of them. the ufc was confident that whatever short term hit they took in terms of legitimacy could be recouped through building stars with the talent on its roster. idk if it worked out for them, but im sure that was roughly the calculation ufc made.

sometimes fighters re-invent themselves outside the ufc, and the ufc re-examines them. but for the most part, bellator is the graveyard for past-prime and unmarketable ufc talent.
 
kflo said:
If they wanted to match it they could have matched it.
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but they didnt so left.

it would of been a win win for moussai. if ufc matched he fightong in the contract he was happy with. if ufc didnt match he went to belltator which he would been happy doing.
 
Gotta love the UFC contracts - they can release you at any time for any reason, but if you're a fighter they're iron clad and inescapable and the UFC basically owns you.
 
I'm still mad over them dropping Fitch. He was the solid #2 in the division for a long time, and they just cut him cause of his style. He was "boring" but effective, and they knew he was gonna knock other contenders out of the mix. The cut was 100% based on sales.
 
Petyis was making 300k per fight, if he cant beat Clay Collard he probably isnt worth that anymore.

There have been really bad cuts though. Bader, Phil and Anderson should all be in the UFC still even if theyre boring.

DJ should be still around too. Ben eas a terrible trade.
 
kflo said:
They have the right to match.....
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Only if the contract states this. Of course they probably have a set of standard clauses in all contracts including the ability to drop a fighter at any time.
 
SherdogFan23 said:
Only if the contract states this. Of course they probably have a set of standard clauses in all contracts including the ability to drop a fighter at any time.
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I linked to this already. 99.9% of their contracts have this.
 
MMAProfessional said:
Seems like the UFC is great at letting guys go who you thought they shouldn't. I'm too drunk to care right now but Pettis was one. Not saying he was a huge loss but losing to Collard was bad. Name others because there is a few. Rory was a bad loss IMO.
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Pettis hasnt been a top 15 fighter in years and clearly was on the decline
 
Honestly I think the UFC is doing fine letting some guys go......what they're doing a terrible job at is scouting new talent. Relying on cheap guys from the Pretender Series to pad cards. Meanwhile those morons over at Bellator are somehow snatching up some of the best prospects out there from around the world. They aren't scared to give these crazy Russian cats a chance while the UFC has a self imposed quota on monsters coming from the Caucuses.
 
TeddyT said:
I'm still mad over them dropping Fitch. He was the solid #2 in the division for a long time, and they just cut him cause of his style. He was "boring" but effective, and they knew he was gonna knock other contenders out of the mix. The cut was 100% based on sales.
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They didn't cut Phil Davis but it was essentially the same thing. The UFC had exclusive negotiating rights with him after his last contract fight, but chose to let him go. The guy won almost all of his fights, never got finished, and was always TOP 5. A lot of people didn't like him because of his grinding clinch style that most thought was boring.
 
A lot of the people that leave do so of their own accord.
 
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