4. Bizarre Roster Changes
First the new owners starting laying off staff, including the no-show jobs of Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes. But then some peculiar roster cuts began to be made. Originally none of these were too concerning:
– Cody East (long criminal record)
– BigFoot Silva (legit needs TRT)
– Kevin Casey (hadn’t been doing that well)
– Tamdan McCrory (meh)
– Kenny Robertson (bit of a stretch to release him)
Recently however, the new owners demonstrated that they are just going to let ranked fighters have their contracts run out. Flyweights Ali Bagautinov and Zack Makovsky were both in the top 15 rankings when their contracts were allowed to run out, granted neither guy was exactly tearing it up lately.
Now add Lorenz Larkin, Rick Story, and Misha Cirkunov to the list. Larkin has won 4 of his last 5, including at UFC 202 over Neil Magny and over Jorge Masvidal in May. Story has won 3 of his last 4, with his only loss being to Donald Cerrone during that period. As for Misha Cirkunov, his 4W-0L record in the UFC should have made him a guy the company would want to keep.
It’s pretty clear at this point that the new UFC doesn’t want the best fighters, they just worry about the marketable ones.
